The 2001 United Nations Climate Change Conference took place from October 29 to November 10, 2001, in

Marrakech Marrakesh or Marrakech ( or ; ar, مراكش, murrākuš, ; ber, ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ, translit=mṛṛakc}) is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakes ...

, Morocco. The conference included the 7th Conference of the Parties (COP7) to the

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in th ...

(UNFCCC). The negotiators wrapped up the work on the

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Plan of Action, finalizing most of the operational details and setting the stage for nations to ratify the

Kyoto Protocol The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part ...

. The completed package of decisions is known as the

Marrakech Accords The Marrakech Accords is a set of agreements reached at the 7th Conference of the Parties (COP7) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in 2001, on the rules of meeting the targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol. The sep ...

. The

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

delegation maintained its observer role, declining to participate actively in the negotiations. Other parties continued to express hope that the United States would re-engage in the process at some point and worked to achieve ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the requisite number of countries to bring it into force (55 countries needed to ratify it, including those accounting for 55% of

developed country A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...

emissions of carbon dioxide in 1990). The date of the

World Summit on Sustainable Development The World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002, took place in South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September 2002. It was convened to discuss ustainable developmentorganizations, 10 years after the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. (It was the ...

(August–September 2002) was put forward as a target to bring the Kyoto Protocol into force. The

(WSSD) was to be held in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

, South Africa. The main decisions at COP 7 included: * Operational rules for international

emissions trading Emissions trading is a market-based approach to controlling pollution by providing economic incentives for reducing the emissions of pollutants. The concept is also known as cap and trade (CAT) or emissions trading scheme (ETS). Carbon emission t ...

among parties to the Protocol and for the CDM and joint implementation; * A compliance regime that outlined consequences for failure to meet emissions targets but deferred to the parties to the Protocol, once it came into force, the decision on whether those consequences would be legally binding; * Accounting procedures for the flexibility mechanisms; * A decision to consider at COP 8 how to achieve a review of the adequacy of commitments that might lead to discussions on future commitments by developing countries.

References

21st-century diplomatic conferences (UN) Diplomatic conferences in Morocco

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

United Nations Climate Change Conference, 2001 2001 in the environment 21st century in Marrakesh October 2001 events in Africa November 2001 events in Africa 2001 in Morocco Events in Marrakesh Climate change in Morocco {{Morocco-hist-stub