The next round of talks, set for October 1999 in Bonn, Germany, will continue to work out details on emissions trading and other mechanisms. The Protocol has been signed by over 80 countries. Based on the work of over 2,000 leading scientists from 130 countries, the IPCC, set up in 1988, reviews scientific and economic research on climate change. Its next major assessment report is due in 2001. Developing countries have a 10-year grace period to comply and must freeze their production and use of CFCs as of 1 July 1999.
Schedules are in place to phase out other ozone-depleting substances.
Convention administered by the UN Economic Commission for Europe. To regulate the nearly 4 million tons of toxic waste that crosses national borders each year, in 1989 countries negotiated the Basel Convention on hazardous wastes, administered by UNEP and since ratified by 121 countries. In 1995 the treaty was strengthened to outlaw the export of toxic waste from developed to developing countries, which often do not have the technology for safe disposal. In 1998, over 100 Governments adopted an international treaty, negotiated under FAO and UNEP auspices, on the sharing of information on trade in hazardous chemicals and pesticides. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity, signed at the 1992 Earth Summit and since ratified by 174 nations, obligates countries to protect plant and animal species through habitat preservation and other means.