COP18/CMP8

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC) is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in 3 to 14 June 1992. The treaty is aimed at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

The treaty as originally framed set no mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual nations and contained no enforcement provisions; it is therefore considered legally non-binding. Rather, the treaty included provisions for updates (called “protocols”) that would set mandatory emission limits. Yearly conferences known as the Conference of Parties are held in different host cities. 1997 was most (in)famous for the forging of the controversial Kyoto Protocol, whose success in reducing emissions being quite limited. During the course of the year, many intersessionals, or smaller-scale conferences are held mainly in Bonn, Germany where the UNFCCC secretariat is headquartered.

The 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol will take place from Monday, 26 November to Friday, 7 December 2012 in Doha, Qatar.

The Republic of Korea will host a ministerial meeting to prepare for COP 18/CMP 8. Such ministerial meetings are a tradition in the UNFCCC negotiations and are instrumental in clarifying, at a high-level, central issues in the weeks before a COP.

The State of Qatar and the Republic of Korea will make joint efforts to globally promote and implement the green growth agenda at and in the run-up to the conference.

The Republic of Korea has championed the concept of the ìgreen economyî, which links green growth to sustainable development and poverty eradication, and will be a central issue under discussion at the Rio+20 summit to be held in June next year in Rio de Janeiro.

The State of Qatar, as one of the worldís main energy exporters, expressed its eagerness in Durban to secure progress in the UN climate change negotiations, and support to the endeavours of developing countries, including small island developing States, in adapting to the inevitable effects of climate change.

The UNFCCCís annual Conferences of the Parties are rotated between the five UN regional groups, with the Asia-Pacific Group this year hosting COP18 in Qatar.