The IPCC recognizes that many uncertainties limit the ability to project and detect future climate change. The IPCC warns, however, that uncertainties should not preclude action today. Climate-induced environmental changes cannot be reversed quickly, if at all, due to the long time scales associated with the climate system. Furthermore, decisions made in the near-term may limit the range of policy options available later, because higher emissions today will require deeper cuts in the future to meet a given target concentration. International Problems Require International Solutions.
International cooperation is needed to address global climate change.
U.N. Framework Convention . Signatories set a non-binding target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. Later that year, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, more countries signed onto the agreement, bringing the total to 165. Since the Framework Convention, most industrial countries have moved in the opposite direction from the stabilization goal. In 1993, the US announced its Climate Change Action Plan, a set of voluntary programs aimed at meeting the Framework Convention s target.