| 1972 Studies with ice cores reveal large climate shifts in the past. |
| 1974 Significant drought and other unusual weather phenomenon over the past two years cause increased concern about climate change not only among scientists but with the public as a whole. |
| 1976 Deforestation and other impacts on the ecosystem start to receive attention as major issues in the future of the world’s climate. |
| 1977 The scientific community begins focusing on global warming as a serious threat needing to be addressed within the next century. |
| 1979 The World Climate Research Programme is launched to coordinate international research on global warming and climate change. |
| 1982 Greenland ice cores show significant temperature oscillations over the past century. |
| 1983 The greenhouse effect and related issues get pushed into the political arena through reports from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Environmental Protection Agency. |
| 1984–90 The media begins to make global warming and its enhanced greenhouse effect a common topic among Americans. Many critics emerge. |
| 1987 An ice core from Antarctica analyzed by French and Russian scientists reveals an extremely close correlation between CO2 and temperature going back more than 100,000 years. |
| 1988 The United Nations set up a scientific authority to review the evidence on global warming. It is called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and consists of 2,500 scientists from countries around the world. |
| 1989 The first IPCC report says that levels of human-made greenhouse gases are steadily increasing in the atmosphere and predicts that they will cause global warming. |
| 1992 The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), known informally as the Earth Summit, begins on June 3 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It results in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development Statement of Forest Principles, and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. |
| 1993 Greenland ice cores suggest that significant climate change can occur within one decade. |
| 1995 The second IPCC report is issued and concludes there is a human-caused component to the greenhouse effect warming. The consensus is that serious warming is likely in the coming century. Reports on the breaking up of Antarctic ice sheets and other signs of warming in the polar regions are now beginning to catch the public’s attention. |
| 1997 The third conference of the parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change is held in Kyoto, Japan. Adopted on December 11, a document called the Kyoto Protocol commits its signatories to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. |
Labels: Environmental History