@article{discovery10174043, pages = {1--16}, note = {{\copyright} 2023 The Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.}, journal = {UCL Open: Environment}, title = {A short history of the successes and failures of the international climate change negotiations}, year = {2023}, volume = {5}, publisher = {UCL Press}, keywords = {climate change, negotiations, UNFCCC, COP26, COP27, Paris Agreement, Kyoto Protocol, net zero, climate emergency, environmental social movements}, author = {Maslin, M. A. and Lang, J. and Harvey, F.}, abstract = {The last 35 years have been a period of intense and continuous international negotiations to deal with climate change. During the same period of time humanity has doubled the amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There has, however, been progress and some notable successes in the negotiations. In 2015, at COP21 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 196 countries adopted the Paris Agreement stating that they would limit global temperatures to well below 2oC above pre-industrial levels and would pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels. The first review of the Paris Agreement was at COP26 in Glasgow with many countries pledging to go to net zero emissions by the middle of the century. But currently these pledges, if fulfilled, will only limit the global average temperature to between 2.4oC and 2.8oC. At COP27 in Egypt the core agreements from the Glasgow Climate Pact were maintained and countries finally agreed to set up a loss and damage facility - although details of who will provide the finance and who can claim are still be to be worked out. This article reviews the key moments in the history of international climate change negotiations and discusses what the key objectives are for future COP meetings.}, url = {https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000059}, issn = {26320886} }