United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)

The international treaty unveiled at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992. The UNFCCC commits signatory countries to stabilize anthropogenic (i.e. human-induced) greenhouse gas emissions to "levels that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." The UNFCCC also requires that all signatory parties develop and update national inventories of anthropogenic emissions of all greenhouse gases not otherwise controlled by the Montreal Protocol. Out of 155 countries that have ratified this accord, the United States was the first industrialized nation to do so. See Conference of the Parties, Berlin Mandate, Kyoto Protocol, Montreal Protocol.