Introduction

Unlike many other issues, climate change, a very specific, scientifically complex problem, entered the international agenda through an abstract theoretical awareness of the problem rather than an actual experience of its consequences. In the 1980s, it moved rapidly from the scientific arena to the political arena, picking up concern from non-state actors on the way. It then developed a twin track – a track in which the scientific process of assessing information was institutionalized in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and a negotiating track through the establishment of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) under the auspices of the UN General Assembly to initiate negotiations on a climate treaty. This chapter explains the chronology of events, focuses on how the problem was defined, the role of the key actors, the key outputs and major trends in this period ending in 1990.

The chronology of events

The first driving factor for global governance in the climate domain was the role of individual scientists from the 19th century onwards in incrementally identifying various aspects of the problem (see Table 3.1). This culminated in the scientific consensus that climate change is a serious threat to humanity at the first World Climate Conference organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1979. The Conference Declaration stated: