Climate Change Events and Impact1827: French polymath Jean-Baptiste Fourier suggests the existence of an atmospheric effect keeping the Earth warmer than it would otherwise be. He also uses the analogy of a greenhouse.1863: Irish scientist John Tyndall publishes paper describing how water vapor can be a greenhouse gas 1890’s: Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius and an American, P.C. Chamberlain, independently consider the problems that might be caused by CO2 building up in the atmosphere. Both scientists realize that the burning of fossil fuels could lead to global warming, but neither suspect the process might already have started. 1890’s to 1940: Average surface air temperatures increase by about 0.25 °C. Some scientist see the American Dust Bowl as a sign of the greenhouse effect at work. 1940 to 1970: Worldwide cooling of 0.2 °C. Scientific interest in greenhouse effect wanes. Some climatologists predict a new ice age. 1957: US oceanographer Roger Revelle warns that people are conducting a "large-scale geophysical experiment" on the planet by releasing greenhouse gases. Colleague David Keeling sets up first continuous monitoring of CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Immediately Keeling finds regular year-on-year rise. 1970s: Series of studies by the US Department of Energy increases concerns about future global warming. 1979: First World Climate Conference adopts climate change as major issue and calls on governments "to foresee and prevent potential man-made changes in climate". 1985: First major international conference on the greenhouse effect at Villach, Austria, warns that greenhouse gases will "in the first half of the next century, cause a rise of global mean temperature w hich is greater than any in man's history". This could cause sea levels to rise by up to a meter, researchers say. Conference also reports that gases other than CO2, such as methane, ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide, will also contribute to warming. 1987: Warmest year on record. The 1980s turn out to be the warmest decade, with seven of the eight warmest years recorded up to 1990. Even the coldest years in the 1980s were warmer than the warmest years of the 1880s. 1988: Global warming attracts worldwide headlines after Dr. James Hansen of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies lab tells a Congressional hearing "global warming is at hand." And blames a blame major US drought – which fueled massive wildfires in Yellowstone Park -- on its influence. Meeting of climate scientists in Toronto subsequently calls for 20 per cent cuts in global CO2 emissions by the year 2005. UN sets up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to analyze and report on scientific findings. 1988: U.S. Congresswoman, Claudine Schneider (R-RI), authors the first significant piece of legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the Global Warming Prevention Act. 1990: The first report of the IPCC finds that the planet has warmed by 0.5 °C in the past century. IPCC warns that only strong measures to halt rising greenhouse gas emissions will prevent serious global warming. Provides scientific clout for UN negotiations for a climate convention. Negotiations begin after the UN General Assembly in December. 1991: Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Philippines, throwing debris into the stratosphere that shields the Earth from solar energy, which helps interrupt the warming trend. Average temperatures drop for two years before rising again. Scientists point out that this event shows how sensitive global temperatures are to disruption. 1992:Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed by 154 nations in Rio, agrees to prevent "dangerous" warming from greenhouse gases and sets initial target of reducing emissions from industrialized countries to 1990 levels by the year 2000. President George Bush signs on behalf of the United States. 1994: The Alliance of Small Island States - many of whom fear they will disappear beneath the waves as sea levels rise - adopt demand for 20 per cent cuts in emissions by the year 2005. This, they say, will cap sea-level rise at 20 centimeters. 1995: Hottest year yet. In March, the Berlin Mandate is agreed by signatories at the first full meeting of the Climate Change Convention in Berlin. Industrialized nations agree on the need to negotiate real cuts in their emissions, to be concluded by the end of 1997. In November, the IPCC agrees that current warming "is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin" and that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate". Report predicts that, under a "business as usual" scenario, global warming by the year 2100 will be between 1 °C and 3.5 °C. 1996: At the second meeting of the Climate Change Convention, the US and President Bill Clinton’s administration agree for the first time to legally binding emissions targets and sides with the IPCC against influential "skeptical" scientists. After a four year pause, global emissions of CO2 continue their steep climb, and scientists warn that most industrialized countries will not meet Rio agreement to stabilize emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. 1997:Kyoto Protocol agrees legally binding emissions cuts for industrialized nations, averaging 5.5 per cent, to be met by 2010. The meeting also adopts a series of flexibility measures, allowing countries to meet their targets partly by trading emissions permits, establishing carbon sinks such as forests to soak up emissions, and by investing in other countries. The precise rules are left for further negotiations. Meanwhile, the US government says it will not ratify the agreement unless it sees evidence of "meaningful participation" in reducing emissions from developing countries. 1998: Follow-up negotiations in Buenos Aires fail to resolve disputes over the Kyoto "rule book", but agree on a deadline for resolution by the end of 2000. 1998 is the hottest year in the hottest decade of the hottest century of the millennium. 1999: Scientists, reconstructing the global climate for the last 1,000 years, using weather records, tree-rings, coral and ice-core readings, declare that the decade of the 1990s is the hottest at least in the last millennium. 2001: Newly elected U.S. President, George W. Bush, renounces the Kyoto Protocol because he questions the science and he believes it will damage the US economy. 2001: International talks finally conclude the fine print of the Kyoto Protocol. 2001: United Nations weather agency reports that 2001 is the second hottest year in the 140 years that meteorologists have been keeping records. Nine of the 10 warmest years since 1860 have occurred since 1990, the agency said, and temperatures are rising three times as fast as in the early 1900's. June 3, 2002: The United States sends its "U.S. Climate Action Report 2002”, to the United Nations. The report "strongly concludes that no matter what is done to cut emissions in the future, nothing can be done about the environmental consequences of several decades' worth of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases already in the atmosphere." It further states that "Some of the goods and services lost through the disappearance or fragmentation of natural ecosystems are likely to be costly or impossible to replace." The report also warns of the substantial disruption of snow-fed water supplies, the loss of coastal and mountain ecosystems and more frequent heat waves. "A few ecosystems, such as alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains and some barrier islands, are likely to disappear entirely in some areas," it says. "Other ecosystems, such as Southeastern forests, are likely to experience major species shifts or break up into a mosaic of grasslands, woodlands and forests." June 17, 2002: Study released by Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which was created under the North American Free Trade Agreement, calls for "immediate action" to tackle harmful greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. July 22, 2002: California Governor Gray Davis signs the nation's first law to restrict emissions of so-called greenhouse gases from the tailpipes of cars and trucks. 2002: Since 1980, the earth has experienced 19 of its 20 hottest years on record, with 2002 the second hottest ever recorded, and 1998 the hottest. 2002: Japan, the European Union and its 15 member states and Canada ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Note: This document was created by Green House Network with editing by Ross Gelbspan and by cross-referencing a timeline posted on http://www.newscientist.com.
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