International efforts to tackle climate change began at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, leading to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Earlier this year, the branch of the United Nations that oversees climate negotiations, the UNFCCC, declared the protocol had proved that climate agreements work. The protocol required that, by 2013, industrialised countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5 per cent relative to 1990 levels. While some failed, most beat their targets. Their collective emissions fell by about 23 per cent. "The Kyoto Protocol was a remarkable achievement in many ways," Christiana Figueres, head of the UNFCCC, has said. "It clearly played an important role in catalysing this promising trend, which has led to a collective and very welcome 'over-achievement'." The protocol also "put in place pioneering concepts, flexible options, practical solutions and procedures for accountability that we often take for granted today", Figueres said.
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