The Environment Chronicle

Notable environmental events between 2002 and 2002 Deselect

  1. The eighth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 8) took place from 23 October to 1 November 2002 in New Delhi, India. The Climate Change Conference took on a bridging function. Negotiations on the details of the Kyoto Protocol were essentially complete and it was expected to enter into force the following year. However negotiations on a second commitment period were deferred until the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. For this reason, COP 8 held initial talks with key countries such as Brazil, India and China on the options regarding fair commitments for developing countries. However, these talks only took place on an informal level. Besides this political discussion, decisions were taken on the design of the Clean Development Mechanism and the use of funds provided by industrialised countries for climate action in developing countries. In addition the New Delhi summit also discussed new guidelines on the national reports to be drawn up by developing countries, and agreed on a work programme aimed at raising awareness of climate issues and anchoring them more firmly in the Parties' educational programmes.

  2. The main result of the so far largest conference of the United Nations was to mark the future path to sustainable development by new priorities, targets and programmes. Important new targets were established, such as: to halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015; to use and produce chemicals by 2020 in ways that do not lead to significant adverse effects on human health and the environment; to maintain or restore depleted fish stocks to levels that can produce the maximum sustainable yield on an urgent basis and where possible by 2015; and to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction in the current rate of loss of biological diversity.