Climate & environment

Topics represented

Climate & environment (50) · Cooperación internacional (16) · Derecho ambiental (12) · Gobernanza ambiental (11) · Cambio climático (8) · Paleoclima (8) · British Empire (7) · Oceans, navigation & cartography (7) · Política climática (7) · Biodiversidad (5) · Famine, health & environment (5) · Hydrography & bathymetry (5)

Records and sources

Ordered by start date. Long lives and processes may begin before the period you want to study.

1. 1957–1977

   Tharp and Heezen make seafloor relief visible

   The 1957 physiographic map of the Atlantic and later syntheses by Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen turned scattered profiles into a continuous picture of ridges, valleys, and abyssal plains. The mapping helped interpret plate tectonics and culminated in a 1977 world ocean-floor map.

2. 1972

   Stockholm Declaration and Action Plan

   The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm adopted a declaration of principles and an action plan. It placed environmental questions on the multilateral agenda and opened debates on environment, well-being, and development; its principles guided cooperation but were not, by themselves, uniformly enforceable obligations.

3. 1972

   Establishment of the United Nations Environment Programme

   The UN General Assembly established UNEP in 1972 following the Stockholm conference. The institution went on to coordinate, assess, and support international environmental action, but depends on States’ mandates, resources, and cooperation; it neither replaces national authorities nor turns its assessments into automatic policy.

4. 1973–1975

   CITES and international wildlife trade

   The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was signed in 1973 and entered into force in 1975. It established permits and listings to regulate cross-border trade in species, products, and derivatives; it regulates particular trade flows, rather than by itself guaranteeing population conservation or resolving all pressures on habitats.

5. 1979–1983

   Bonn Convention on Migratory Species

   The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals was adopted in 1979 and entered into force in 1983. It proposed cooperation among range States and appendices for threatened species or those requiring international agreements; its coverage and implementation depend on Parties and later arrangements, rather than identical protection for all migratory species.

6. 1979–1983

   Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution

   UNECE’s Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution was signed in 1979 and entered into force in 1983. It articulated research, monitoring, information exchange, and regional cooperation on pollutants crossing borders; it was a pan-European and North American framework, not a worldwide solution or an attribution of every impact to an individual source.

7. 1984

   Bhopal chemical disaster

   On the night of 2–3 December 1984, methyl isocyanate was released from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, causing an acute health emergency and long-lasting consequences. The event made chemical-industrial risk, emergency preparedness, and remediation environmental as well as public-health issues; damage counts and assessments of long-term effects must be read according to method and period.

8. 1985–1988

   Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer

   Governments adopted the Vienna Convention in 1985; it entered into force in 1988 as a framework for research, systematic observation, information exchange, and cooperation on ozone depletion. It did not yet set the production and consumption controls later established by the Montreal Protocol, so the framework agreement should be distinguished from subsequent measures.

9. 1986

   Environmental impact of the Chernobyl accident

   The April 1986 Chernobyl accident released radioactive material and led to deposition and contamination across land, forests, waters, and settlements in different regions. International assessments distinguish intense effects near the reactor from consequences that varied by radionuclide, ecosystem, distance, and time; this entry concerns environmental impact, not an equivalence among all nuclear systems or accidents.

10. 1987–1989

    Montreal Protocol and controls on ozone-depleting substances

    The Montreal Protocol was adopted in 1987 and entered into force in 1989. It established legally binding controls on the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances, later adjusted and amended; it is a cooperation policy with obligations and schedules, not proof that every exposure or environmental recovery is identical in every region.

11. 1988

    Establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

    UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization established the IPCC in 1988 to provide policymakers with periodic assessments of knowledge about climate change. The IPCC assesses literature and does not itself make binding policy or conduct primary research; its reports sit within broader State and intergovernmental decisions.

12. 1989–1992

    Basel Convention on transboundary movements of hazardous wastes

    The Basel Convention was adopted in 1989 and entered into force in 1992. It established a framework to control transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal through prior notification and consent; it regulates movements and responsibilities among Parties, rather than amounting to an absolute ban on all waste or identical management capacity in every country.

13. 1992

    Convention on Biological Diversity opened for signature

    In Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity was opened for signature alongside the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The convention linked conservation, sustainable use, and benefit-sharing in a multilateral framework; its concrete obligations and implementation depend on Parties and later developments.

14. 1992

    Rio Declaration and Agenda 21

    The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro adopted the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21. These frameworks articulated principles and programmes on environment and sustainable development, but not all components had the same legal character or guaranteed financing, implementation, or equivalent outcomes.

15. 1992

    UN Framework Convention on Climate Change opened for signature

    At the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was opened for signature. The Convention recognized climate as a shared resource and created a framework for intergovernmental efforts; its commitments, mechanisms, and results were developed through later negotiations and decisions, not in the act of opening it for signature.

16. 1992–2006

    TOPEX/Poseidon maps the ocean surface from space

    The joint NASA–CNES mission measured sea-surface topography with unprecedented accuracy for more than thirteen years. Its global observations of sea level, currents, and tides transformed dynamic ocean mapping and linked space navigation, geodesy, and climate science.

17. c. 1997–c. 1998

    First confirmed global coral-bleaching event

    Thermal stress affecting reefs from 1997 to 1998 culminated in the 1998 episode, recognized by NOAA as the first confirmed global coral-bleaching event, with impacts recorded across the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic basins. Intensity, mortality, and recovery varied among reefs and locations; this milestone describes observed extent rather than attributing every local response to one forcing.

18. 1997–2005

    Kyoto Protocol and flexible mechanisms

    The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 and entered into force in 2005. It operationalized the Framework Convention with targets for industrialized Parties and economies in transition, together with international emissions trading, joint implementation, and the Clean Development Mechanism. Its mechanisms were accounting, incentive, and verification instruments within agreed rules; their existence did not by itself demonstrate equivalent reductions or identical distributive outcomes.

19. 1999–2026

    Argo observes the ocean interior globally

    Since 1999–2000, the international Argo program has deployed autonomous floats that profile temperature and salinity to about 2,000 meters and transmit open data. The array reached 3,000 active floats in 2007 and continues expanding toward polar seas, deep water, and biogeochemical variables.

20. 2001–2005

    Marrakesh Accords for implementing Kyoto

    In 2001, COP 7 reached the Marrakesh Accords, and Parties completed their formal adoption in 2005. The package detailed accounting, reporting, review, compliance, finance, adaptation, and rules linked to Kyoto mechanisms. It made the regime more operational, but implementation quality still depended on data, Party decisions, and institutional capacity.

21. 2007

    Bali Action Plan

    COP 13 adopted the Bali Action Plan in 2007 and opened a negotiating process on shared vision, mitigation, adaptation, technology, and finance for long-term cooperation. It was a negotiating roadmap, not a final climate agreement or a guarantee that topics would receive equivalent resources or commitments.

22. 2007

    IPCC AR4: attribution and climate extremes

    The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report synthesized broader records and attribution studies than earlier assessments, and reported detectable human influence on temperature extremes and other parts of the climate system. It also noted that extreme events occur in changing climates and that attributing an individual event remains difficult; the advance was methodological and probabilistic, not an automatic demonstration for every disaster.

23. 2009

    Copenhagen Accord: COP takes note

    In 2009, COP 15 took note of the Copenhagen Accord rather than adopting it or incorporating it as a binding Convention decision. The text influenced later commitments and debates on mitigation, finance, and transparency, but “taking note” did not by itself give it legal force within the UNFCCC process.

24. 2009

    CRU e-mail disclosure and subsequent reviews

    In November 2009, e-mails and data from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit were disclosed online, an episode often called “Climategate.” It prompted public debate on data, peer review, and access to information, as well as independent and parliamentary investigations. Subsequent reviews found no evidence of scientific manipulation invalidating the examined results, while criticizing openness and request-handling practices; those findings do not permit reducing climate research as a whole to the conduct of one unit.

25. 2014–2026

    CARICOM formulates and expands a reparations agenda

    CARICOM heads of government approved a ten-point plan linking Indigenous genocide and African enslavement to health, education, heritage, debt, and development. In February 2026 they endorsed a revised twelve-point manifesto adding economic, environmental, and digital justice; it is a regional political platform, not a British payment agreement

26. 2017–2026

    Seabed 2030 assembles an open global bathymetric map

    The Nippon Foundation and GEBCO launched Seabed 2030 to assemble scattered soundings into an openly available global bathymetric grid. As of 20 April 2026, the project reported 28.7 percent of the seafloor mapped to its standard, about 104 million square kilometers; this is a dated snapshot, not a completed map.

27. 2021

    Aircraft study of Amazonian carbon balance

    A study led by INPE and published in 2021 analysed 590 aircraft vertical profiles of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide at four sites in the Brazilian Amazon from 2010 to 2018. In that design, eastern areas—especially the southeast—showed greater emissions, while western areas retained weak uptake; the study’s estimated balance included emissions associated with fire and deforestation. This regional evidence for that interval does not permanently classify all Amazonia or every subregion as a source or sink.

28. 2021

    Glasgow Climate Pact

    COP26 adopted the Glasgow Climate Pact in 2021. The package called for strengthened emissions cuts, adaptation, finance, and transparency, and for the first time in a COP decision called for the phasedown of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies. These are calls and decisions in a process among Parties; they do not by themselves amount to national implementation or verified outcomes.

29. 2022

    Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

    COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in December 2022, with four goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030. It is a framework agreed by Parties to guide plans, finance, monitoring, and cooperation; its targets do not amount to a guarantee of implementation, effective protection, or benefit-sharing in every territory.

30. 2022–2025

    Negotiation of a global instrument on plastic pollution

    In 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted resolution 5/14 to negotiate an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including the marine environment, using a full-life-cycle approach. On 15 August 2025, INC-5.2 adjourned without consensus on an instrument text and agreed to resume negotiations on a future date. Thus, at the end of 2025 there was a mandate and a negotiating process, not an adopted global plastics treaty.