United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change unfccc.int (UNFCCC) provides the basis for global action "to protect the climate system for present and future generations". Negotiated between 1990 and 1992, the UNFCCC was adopted in May 1992 and opened for signatures a month later at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Australia ratified the Convention in December 1992 - one of the first countries to do so. The Convention entered into force in 1994 after a requisite 50 countries had ratified it. There are now 193 Parties to the UNFCCC - almost all of the members of the United Nations.
Parties to the Convention have agreed to work towards achieving the Convention's ultimate aim of stabilising "greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system". For the full text of the Convention