1988 - Protecting the global climate for present & future generations
Melting Qori Kalis glacier, Peru 1983 & 2008 (Photo:PBS/Dr. Lonnie G. Thompson).
[W]e must turn the greatest collective challenge facing humankind today – climate change – into the greatest opportunity for common progress towards a sustainable future. (Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, 2014)
In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a specialized agency of the UN, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established an Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The first session of IPCC was held in Geneva on 9-11 November.
On 6 December, the UN General Assembly passes resolution 43/53, declaring climate change “a common concern of mankind” and:
Endorses the action of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme in jointly establishing an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to provide international coordinated scientific assessments of the magnitude, timing and potential environmental and socio-economic impact of climate change and realistic response strategies, and expresses appreciation for the work already initiated by the Panel.
The first IPCC Assessment Report of 1990 underlines the importance of climate change as a challenge requiring international cooperation and played a role in the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
In 2007, the IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.“
Drying Lake Urmia, Iran in 2000, 2010, 2014 (Photos: US Interior Dept/USGS and NASA).
Watch the history of the United Nations unfold a document at a time at: 70 Years, 70 Documents: An Exhibit.
