The Earth is getting warmer. Sea level is rising. The ecosystem is becoming increasingly vulnerable.

From Rio de Janeiro to Copenhagen, global efforts to fight climate change, which is posing a threat to the survival of humanity, have been a long and bumpy process.

Now, in the run-up to the UN climate change conference to be held on Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen, Denmark, people pin great hopes on the meeting to reach an agreement on the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for 2012-2020.

RIO DE JANEIRO: ESTABLISHING THE FRAMEWORK FOR COOPERATION

In June 1992, a UN Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was an unprecedented gathering of representatives from more than 170 countries and regions, including over 100 heads of state or government.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was opened for signatures during the meeting and entered into force in 1994.

It was the first international treaty to call for controls on greenhouse gases and serves as a basic framework for the international community to cooperate on climate change.

The meeting represented an important step forward in efforts to protect the Earth from climate change. However, it failed to reach concrete agreements on funds and technology transfer the developed countries should provide.

KYOTO: SETTING THE GOAL FOR 2012

At the third session of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted with the goal of achieving stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

The protocol, which supplements and strengthens the UNFCCC, sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European Union for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the protocol, developed countries would reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels during the first commitment period (2008-2012).

It also asks developed countries to provide funds and technology needed by developing countries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

However, due to the lack of political will on the part of some countries led by the United States, only slim progress was made in realizing the goal. In 2001, the Bush Administration announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from the treaty.

With the absence of the United States, the protocol entered into force in 2005, eight years after the protocol was adopted and only seven years away from the end of the first commitment period.

BALI: STARTING THE NEGOTIATING PROCESS

In December 2007, the 13th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC was held in Bali, Indonesia.

Participants discussed how to cope with climate change after 2012 when the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol expires. The Bali Roadmap was approved at the end of the meeting.

They also started the negotiating process for the implementation of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol and committed themselves to completing the negotiations by 2009 on new arrangements in fighting climate change after 2012.

In the two years that followed, nine rounds of climate change negotiations were held. However, as developed countries and developing countries remained far apart on the issue of obligations and commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, only slow progress was made at these negotiations with no tangible results.

The upcoming Copenhagen conference will be a milestone and its success requires all members of the international community to demonstrate their political will to honor their commitments.