Energy and Water Strategy 2007-2010 - Sustainable Blue Mountains

BLUE MOUNTAINS CITY COUNCIL – ENERGY AND WATER STRATEGY
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) was convened due to
the mounting evidence that humans were contributing towards a human induced climate
change. Australia signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) in June
1992 at the Rio Earth Summit and ratified it in December 1992.
The objective of the Convention were to achieve: -
Stabilisation of the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent
dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved
within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure
that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a
sustainable manner.
To achieve this objective the Convention contains a number of principles to guide the Parties’
actions and a series of general commitment for Parties, including requirements to: -
• Prepare national inventories of greenhouse gas emissions and sinks.
• Develop, implement and report on national programs to mitigate climate change and
develop adaptation strategies.
• Cooperate in the development and transfer of technologies, practices and processes that
control, reduce or prevent the emissions of greenhouse gases.
• Take climate change considerations into account in relevant social, economic and
environmental policies and actions.
The countries that are parties to the convention have met regularly since Rio to determine the
details of the Convention’s implementation. These meetings are known as the Conference of
Parties. Of particular note is that the Conference of Parties can adopt protocols to the
Convention, which are subsidiary treaties that would legally bind the Parties to the Protocol.
The first Conference of Parties met in Berlin (1995), with the next Conference of Parties
(COP13) to be held in Bali in December 2007.
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