Realising the scientific evidence on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities, the United Nations General Assembly established the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) in 1990 to prepare an international instrument on climate change. The INC drafted the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which was adopted on 9 May 1992 at the UN Headquarters in New York. The UNFCCC - a global treaty - provides the international framework for managing climate change. The Convention has the ultimate objective of achieving stabilisation of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system; and of achieving such a level within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.
