There are many different mechanisms, entities, and bodies within the UN system that address climate change – either through specific resources like water or as a comprehensive issue.

Learn more through the UN Gateway to Climate Change

• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC):  An international treaty of 192 member states that work towards the goal of preventing dangerous human interference with the climate system. 
• Division of Sustainable Development (DSD):  Part of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) working towards the mission of providing leadership and authoritative expertise on Sustainable Development within the UN system.
• UN Global Compact:  A policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, environment, labor, and anti-corruption.
• United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP): Provides leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Provides a scientific view of the state of climate change and the potential environmental and socio-economic impacts.

Click here for a full list of bodies within the UN system on climate change

Past Summits, Conferences

• UN Climate Change Conference (COP 15)(7 - 18 December 2009) A series of UNFCCC meetings took place thoughout the year, designed to culminate in an ambitious and effective international response to climate change, to be agreed upon at the COP 15 Conference - which resulted at the end of the Confernece - in the Copenhagen Accord. 
• Summit on Climate Change (22 September 2009, UN Headquarters) To focus heads of states and government on the need for urgent action, and to mobilize the highest level political will needed to reach a fair, effective, and scientifically ambitious global climate deal at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December. 
• World Climate Conference - 3  (31 August - 3 September 2009, Geneva Switzerland) The Conference was held in order to establish an international framework to guide the development of climate services which will link science-based climate predictions and information with climate-risk management and adaptation to climate variability and change throughout the world. 
• 2005 World Summit see Outcome Document (paragraphs 50-55) 
• United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) Held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Also known as the “Earth Summit”.

Conventions, Documents

• Agenda 21 from the 1992 Earth Summit
• The Rio Conventions adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit
• The text of the UNFCCC Convention
• The subsequent Kyoto Protocol 
• The text of the Kyoto Protocol (pdf)
• Convention on Biological Diversity
• Convention to Combat Desertification
• Copenhagen Accord