What's Durban all about? 
The UN Climate Change Summit in Durban is a meeting of world governments to try and agree action to address the risks from climate change.
Durban is one in a series of meetings under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which was established at the Rio Conference in 1992 with the aim of:
Key issues for Durban
- Can any agreement be achieved on legally binding emission reductions beyond 2012 - the date at which emission reductions agreed by the developed world under the Kyoto Protocol run out - a comprehensive deal is looking very unlikely
- Agreement on emission reductions for the developing world - all eyes on India and China with their rapidly growing greenhouse gas emissions - a very contentious issue
- Action on adaptation to cope with the risks from climate change - a global agreement at Durban on limiting greenhouse gas emissions looks more difficult than ever, so there will be more focus than ever on adapting to unavoidable climate change
- Funding from richer nations to help developing countries cope with climate change - a Green Climate Fund was agreed at COP-16 and promised
$100 billion a year by 2020
Avoiding dangerous climate change
At last year's Climate Summit in Cancun, Mexico (COP-16), countries around the world agreed to try and limit global warming to 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. Some countries around the world – especially countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change– think the limit should be 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.
The science says that limiting warming to 2 degrees will require global emissions to be reduced to 50% of their 1990 levels by 2050.
More on latest science>>
Over the 20th century global temperature has risen by three quarters of a degree. More on observed warming>>
What is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
The meeting in Durban is one in a series of meetings under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which was established at the Rio Conference in 1992 with the aim of “stabilising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.
The UNFCCC came into force in 1995 when the first Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP-1) took place. Durban will be the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention (or COP-17)
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