| Summary/Abstract |
For almost a quarter-century, the world has placed its faith in international agreements to address the threat of climate change. A binding global agreement is the best way to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions are capped at a low level to prevent dangerous climate change. The effort to set emissions limits came into force in 1992, when the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was first signed. The UNFCCC has become a universal treaty with over 190 signatories. But the binding agreement soon became thwarted over the argument put forward by developing countries that “rich countries should shoulder the entire burden of reducing emissions”. On the contrary, the United States argued that unless China and other large developing countries agreed to limit their emissions, an international agreement would be meaningless.
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