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Chronological History of Climate Science and Policy

Climate Science and Policy

Chronological History of Climate Science and Policy

Time	Event
1824	Joseph Fournier determined that if the earth lacked an atmosphere, it would be far colder than it was. He concluded that sun light passed easily through the atmosphere leading to a heating of the earth. However, the atmosphere blocked the radiant heat from the earth escaping back into space.
1840	Louis Agassiz published "Studies on Glaciers", which hypothesized that a great sheet of ice extended from the North Pole to the Mediterranean before the Alps had been formed. Bases for his hypothesis included erratic boulders bearing no resemblance to rock in their surroundings found many miles distant from their place of origin, geological features resembling those associated with glaciers found many kilometres from known glaciers. Subsequently, geologists mapped the features Agassiz attributed to ice ages. This mapping revealed that there were a series of ice ages that came and went.
1861	John Tyndall told the Royal Society of London that ozone, carbon dioxide, water vapour, nitrous oxide and other gases absorbed radiation from the earth's surface, while oxygen and nitrogen, which accounted for 99 percent of the atmosphere's volume, did not. The initial findings were discounted for some time because carbon dioxide and water vapour overlapped in the way they absorbed radiation from the surface, so that adding more of either had only a miniscule effect on climate. After World War II, it became clear that the initial laboratory tests were flawed because they were carried out at sea level. Carbon dioxide was found to absorb considerably more radiation at high elevations, because the air is cooler.
1875	James Croll published "Climate and Time in Their Geological Relations: A Theory of Secular Changes in the Earth's Climate". While others had postulated a relationship between earth's orbital variations and ice ages, Croll extended their work. He hypothesized that ice ages were driven by a combination of variations in earth's orbit, axial tilt and wobble. These variations would be amplified by winds and ocean currents that distribute solar energy around the earth. snow and ice formation that would reflect solar energy into space, and precipitation in the form of snow that would create an ice cap. However, observations initially did not support his theory.
1903	Svante Arrhenius developed a theoretical model showing how atmospheric carbon dioxide affected the earth's temperature. Arrhenius developed the world's first global climate model. The model relied on manual calculations throughout. He predicted that a doubling of carbon dioxide would lead to a 5 degree Celsius warming in the tropics and a 6 degree Celsius warming at high latitudes.
1908	Earnest Shackleton found seams of coal, impressions of leaves in sandstone boulders, an fossilized wood from a coniferous tree in Antarctica. This was evidence that 250 million years ago, Antarctica was free of ice. Wegener's theory of continental drift (see below) explained that at that time, Antarctica was located much closer to the equator.
1915	Alfred Wegener published the first edition of "The Origin of Continents and Oceans". The document was the first serious scientific work putting forward the theory of continental drift. The basis of the argument was the similarity in geology and nature between continents separated by oceans. Wegener's evidence, however, did not prove continental drift. Proof came in the 1960s, when ocean vessels measured magnetization of the ocean floor. Continental drift provided explanations regarding climates in the distant past. For example, 430 million years ago, there was a major ice age which occurred when a supercontinent lay over the south pole.
1920	Milutin Milankovitch refined the work of James Croll in "A Mathematical Theory of the Thermal Phenomenon Produced by Solar Radiation". Like Croll, he suggested that ice ages are caused by variations in the earth's orbit, axial tilt, and wobble and accordingly calculated earth's temperatures back 130,000 years for various latitudes. He found that the earth's tilt was an important determinant of temperatures in different seasons.
1924	Wladimir Koppen and Alfred Wegener published "Climates of the Geological Past". It showed a close correlation between Milankovitch's theoretical estimates of temperature, with the timing of the ebb and flow of glaciation in the Alps, based on the leading theory relating to the timing of glaciation.
1924	John Joly explained in the Edmond Halley lecture to Oxford University how radioactive heating of the earth's interior could cause rocks in earth's interior to melt, leading to large outpourings of lava that would push floating continents apart. Joly provided the mechanism to explain why continental drift could occur.
1938	Guy Stewart Callendar estimated what would happen to the earth's temperature from the continuation of 1936 rates of combustion of fossil fuels He concluded that when atmospheric carbon dioxide reached 360 parts per million parts of air, global temperature would rise by about 0.57 degrees Celsius. He found that the world had been warming by about 0.005 degrees Celsius per year since the late nineteenth century, based on his compilation of global temperature records (which came primarily from Europe and North America). Callendar viewed warming as a good thing.
1941	Milan Milankovitch published additional work related to climate in "Canon of Insolation and Ice Age Problems" just before the Germans invaded Yugoslavia. This work incorporated the fact that the snow line moves to lower altitudes as the climate cools, and the more snow there is, the greater the reflection of the sun's energy into space. This cooling effect was sufficient to trigger an ice age. While Milankovitch's work provided a theoretical explanation for ice ages, the methods used to date actual ice ages were found to be inadequate. This removed an important element in support of Milankovitch's theory.
1951	The World Meteorological Organization was created to link national weather agencies. It later became part of the United Nations.
1956	Ewing and Donn produced a feedback model that the quick onset of ice ages. They hypothesized that an ice free Arctic Ocean would absorb more heat from the sun, and lead to increased snowfall at high latitudes. Some of the snowfall would not melt in summer, leading to increased reflection of the heat into space and cooler temperatures.
1957	Roger Revelle found the carbon dioxide resulting from human activity would not necessarily be absorbed into the oceans readily.
1958	Charles Keeling secured funding from the Scripps Institution on Oceanography for an observation site on Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory to carry out precise measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The pristine air in the centre of the Pacific Ocean allowed the data to serve as a proxy for the planet. The observations showed a steady annual increase in carbon dioxide levels.
1961	Murray Mitchell of the United States Weather Bureau attempted to compile global temperature data. He concluded that the world had experienced a cooling trend since the 1940s. There were more weather stations in the United States and Europe than elsewhere. The mid-century cool-down turned out to be weaker in the southern hemisphere than in the north. Temperatures began to creep upward by the 1970s. This caused concerns about global warming to resurfac.
1965	Roger Revelle led a team of researchers to write a section in the United States' President's Science Advisory Committee's report "Restoring the Quality of Our Environment" . The report offered the first official assessment that rising carbon dioxide might be a future environmental problem.
1966	Cesare Emiliani analysed deep-sea ice cores and showed that the timing of ice ages was determined by small orbital shifts. His analysis suggested that the global climate was sensitive to small changes.
1967	Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald calculated convincingly that doubling carbon dioxide would increase the altitude at which the earth radiated heat into space .
1968	The Ocean Drilling Project began. Study of the cores taken from the bottom of the ocean has enabled scientists to understand a variety of aspects of earth's climate dating back millions of years.
1969	Mikhail Budyko developed a climate model that showed catastrophic feed-backs related to the impact of ice of the earth's albedo.
1974	Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland studied chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and their effects on the ozone layer.
1975	Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald concluded from a complicated model that a doubling of carbon dioxide would lead to global warming of 2.9 degrees Celsius. This estimate is in line with the estimate from the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
1976	James Hays, John Imbrie and Nick Shackleton published "Variations in the Earth's Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages". The paper used modern dating techniques applied to deep sea cores to show the close correlation between Milankovitch's theoretical estimates of temperature at various latitudes, and the ebb and flow of ice ages.
1976	Eddy showed that prolonged periods in the past without sunspots corresponded to cold periods.
1979	The United States Academy of Sciences was asked by the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to assess the possibility of climate change from man-made releases of carbon dioxide. The Charney Report, produced by nine scientists led by Jule Charney, estimated that global temperatures could rise between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius, with a most likely rise of 3.0 degrees Celsius, in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This estimate has proven to be in line with estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Fourth Assessment Report. The report cautioned that because temperature rises lag behind rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide, waiting for the temperature to rise would not be an appropriate policy.
1979	The World Meteorological Organization sponsored the first World Climate Conference. It led to the creation of the United Nations World Climate Program. It attempted to coordinate international research.
1980	The World Climate Research Program was created.
1980	Hansen and others showed that sulphate aerosols caused the climate to cool significantly, masking the underlying warming that was underway.
1982	Ice cores from Greenland indicated that there had been significant temperature oscillations within a century in the past.
1984	Environment Canada sponsored a climate change conference in Toronto. Speakers warned of major disruptions, and predicted significant warming by the middle of the next centure. Opinions were divided on the impacts of climate change.
1985	The United Nations Environment Program, the International Council of Scientific Unions and the World Meteorological Organization sponsored the Second Joint International Assessment of the Role of Carbon Dioxide and Other Greenhouse Gases in Climate Variations and Associated Impact. The report expressed noted that rising concentrations of greenhouse gases were expected to cause significant global warming over the next century and that the assumption of a stable climate in investment decisions was inappropriate,
1985	The analysis of Antarctic ice cores revealed that carbon dioxide and temperatures had gone up and down together in relation to past ice ages. This suggested strong biological and geochemical feedbacks at work in climate systems.
1985	Environment Canada released a 35 page report on the state of Canada's environment. The report predicted that within 50 to 75 years, Canada would experience temperature increases of 3 degrees; Celsius in southern Canada to 10 degrees Celsius in the Arctic. Consequences included praire drought, increased agriculture in cooler, and wetter parts of Canada, a fall in Great Lake water levels, less Arctic ice, sea level rises, more forest fires, and increased pest hazards.
1985	The ozone hole over Antarctica was detected.
1986	An extinct volcano lying below Lake Nyos in Cameroon released a vast amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, suffocating 1,746 people and killing livestock. This illustrated one of the potential risks of large scale carbon capture and storage proposals intended to mitigate the effects of burning fossil fuels.
1987	The World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by the former Norwegian Prime Minister Brundtland, included a warning about global warming in its report entitled "Our Common Future" on sustainable development.
1987	The United Nations Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone layer was agreed.. It came into force in January 1989.
1988	Toronto hosted a major world conference called "The Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security". Prime Minister Brian Mulroney opened the conference, which called for, among other things, reductions in the levels of greenhouse gases. The (Conservative) Government of Canada committed Canada to a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1988 levels by 2005.
1988	The World Meteorological Organization, an agency of the United Nations, established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its role was to "assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation". Under its mandate, Panel reports were to be "neutral with respect to policy". The Panel was not to carry out research, but to assess peer-reviewed scientific literature.
1988	James Hansen, director of the New York based NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, testified before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that he was 99 percent certain that global warming was underway.
1989	The Global Climate Coalition was created by the fossil-fuel and other industries. Prominent members to 1997 included Exxon/Esso, Ford, Royal Dutch Shell, Texaco, British Petroleum, General Motors, Daimler/Chrysler, and the Aluminium Association. The Coalition's message was that climate science was uncertain. In a document revealed in court as part of a law suit, "even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted."
1990	The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its First Assessment Report, which was influential in forming the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992.
1990	Canada's greenhouse gas emissions were 596 million tonnes.
1990	Roy Spencer and John Cristy from the University of Alabama used data from a series of satellites to infer global temperature in three dimensions. Their work concluded that the troposphere was not warming much if any, despite the observed ground-level warming. Data updates through the 1990s produced the same conclusions. Data from instrument laden-weather balloons, launched regularly each day, tended to confirm the findings. These findings supported those who were skeptical about global warming. They were also the subject of intense scientific debate. Various corrections in the data, combined with more recent data, have largely resolved the discrepancy, with the conclusion that global warming was occurring.
1990	The (Conservative) Government of Canada published "Canada's Green Plan for a Healthy Environment". Section V pledged a goal "to stabilize national emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by the year 2000". The "Green Plan" set aside funding to establish the Canadian Climate Research Network, which became operational in 1993. It was subsumed by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, an autonomous foundation established in 2000 by the (Liberal) Government of Canada. The Green Plan committed Canada to stabilization of greenhouse gas emission levels at 1990 levels by 2000.
1991	Norway introduced a carbon tax. Other countries to have done so include Norway, Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
1992	The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (also known as the Rio Earth Summit) took place. The Government of Canada signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its goal was "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with climate systems. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adopt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner." "Dangerous" was not defined, but subsequent text provided some insight into the intended meaning.
1992	Canada's Parliament ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
1993	The Clinton Administration in the United States produced its Climate Change Action Plan. The Plan committed the United States to stabilizing emissions at 1990 levels by 2000. The plan anticipated voluntary measures, committed to $1.9 billion in government expenditures, and ruled out emissions taxes.
1993	The Liberal Party issued its election platform called the "Red Book". It was co-authored by Paul Martin, who was to become the Minister of Finance and subsequently Prime MInister.; The Red Book committed to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent from 1988 by 2005. This was the original commitment of (Conservative) Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
1993	Ice cores from Greenland showed that significant changes in regional climates can occur within a decade.
1994	(Liberal) Prime Minister Jean Chretien told a convention of Calgary energy executives that emission taxes were not being considered.
1995	Canada's federal and provincial energy and environment ministers produced a joint plan called the National Action Program on Climate Change. The plan set a target at stabilizing emissions at 1990 levels by 2000. The plan recognized that climate change to the extent predicted in climate models would pose a significant risk to the global envirionment, with serious consequences for the Canadian economy, particularly the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. The Action Program proposed a Voluntary Challenge and Registry as a vehicle for industry to report what it was doing, and the Canadian Industry Program for Energy Conservation.
1996	The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctic began at Dome Concordia on the Antarctic Plateau. Subsequently, it provided a record of the chemical nature of the atmosphere over a period of 650,000 years. During the period, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels never exceeded 300 parts of air per million, and methane 770 parts of air per billion. Current levels are 385 parts per million for carbon dioxide and 1750 parts per billion for methane.
1996	The Council of the European Union concluded: "... the Council believes that global average temperatures should not exceed 2 degrees (Celsius) above pre-industrial levels ..." This was where the "2 degrees Celsius" target as the maximum desirable increase in global temperature from global warming entered the public arena.
1996	The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its Second Assessment Report. It impacted negotiations leading up to the Kyoto Protocol. The report noted: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." This was the first time the Panel implicated humans as responsible for warming. Not surprisingly, delegations from countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia contested such wording.
1997	Preston Manning, leader of the Reform Party of Canada, criticized the Government of Canada's climate change policy in the House of Commons. He believed the relatively few climate skeptics that questioned the link between emissions caused by humans and global warming. He noted that the Government of Canada lacked an emission reduction plan and did not identify who pays for emissions reductions. Manning was also concerned about the economic costs.
1997	Canada and the provinces concluded an agreement on greenhouse gas emissions at a meeting presided over by Ralph Goodale. The agreement called for a reduction in emissions to 1990 levels by 2008-2012.
1997	The Government of Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Protocol committed Canada to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent below 1990 levels, by the period 2008 to 2012. The Canadian strategy was to commit to a target;slightly lower than than that of the;United States. On the eve of the Kyoto negotiations, the (Liberal) Government of Canada announced that Canada would accept an emission target of a 3 percent reduction from 1990 levels. At the negotiations, the United States Vice President committed the United States to a 7 percent reduction. The Government of Canada offered a 6 percent reduction, which was eventually accepted. There had been little analysis how Canada might meet the reduction target.
1997	The United States Congress voted 95-0 (Byrd-Hagel Resolution) against any treaty that did not specify meaningful emissions cuts for developing as well as developed countries.
1998	The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development reported to Parliament that current approaches to global warming, which relied on voluntary measures, were not;sufficient to deal with the problem.
2000	The Global Climate Coalition, established in 1988, terminated operations.
November 2000	The National Climate Change Process, led by the governments of Canada and Alberta, issued a summary report on the two year consultation, study and modelling process that had just been completed. The consultations involved 16 issue tables, 450 experts, and 225 stakeholders. The report indicated that greenhouse gas taxes of $50 to $150 per tonne of carbon dioxide, or equivalent regulations, would be needed to achieve the Kyoto targets.
October 2000	The Government of Canada released its Action Plan 2000 on Climate Change. The Plan included consumer education, negotiations for fuel efficiency targets, increased production of ethanol, demonstration projects for urban transportation technologies, fuel cell research.
2001	There had been criticism of data used to conclude that the globe was warming. The contention was that urban areas were growing around existing weather stations, and that temperature increases were the result of urbanization and the urban heat island effect. James Hansen's group at NASA was able to identify purely rural weather stations. They removed about 80 percent of the reporting stations from the global average.
2001	Natural Resources Canada within the (Liberal) Government of Canada established the Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network, with a mandate to promote and encourage research on climate change impacts and adaptation.
2001	The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its Third Assessment Report. The Report observed: "There is now new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." The wording was noticeable stronger than in the Second Assessment Report in 1996.
2001	George W. Bush, President of the United States, pulled the United States out of talks related to the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
2002	A Conservative Party fund raising letter signed by Stephen Harper observed that the Kyoto Protocol was a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations, carbon dioxide is essential to life, and the science of global warming was "tentative and contradictory".
2002	Andre Berger and Marie-France Loutre, scientists from Belgium, studied earth's orbital properties into the future, and concluded that the necessary configurations of earth's orbit, axial tilt and wobble to produce another ice age would occur in about 30,000 years.
Summer 2002	The Business Council on National Issues (now called the Canadian Council of Chief Executives), issued a major climate change paper.; It maintained that Canada could not meet its Kyoto targets, and attempts to do so would negatively affect Canadian competitiveness, reduce investment, lower the value of the Canadian dollar, and adversely affect credit ratings. It suggested Canada should focus on air quality issues, rather than greenhouse gas emissions.
September 2002	Jean Chretien, (Liberal) Prime Minister of Canada, announced in Johannesburg at the World Summit on Sustainable Development that Canada would ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
November 2002	Stephen Harper, leader of the Alliance (or Conservative) Pary of Canada, declared that as an economic policy, the Kyoto Protocol was a disaster, and as an environmental policy, it was a fraud.
November 2002	The federal government produced its Climate Change Action Plan for Canada. Among the elements of the new plan was the One Tonne Challenge. The Plan recognized that industry had to be part of a climate change program, particularly the large final emitters. It set a reduction target of 55 million tonnes. Subsequent implementation decisions weakened the reduction target and plan.
November 2002	Michael Roderick and Graham Farquhar published a study in "Science" that noted that a reduction in sunlight reaching the earth's surface could explain the reduction in the amount of water evaporating from standardized measuring pans in use world-wide. Their study explained findings of studies by Gerald Stanhill (who coined the phrase "global dimming") and others who observed that the sunlight reaching the earth's surface had been falling.
December 2002	The Parliament of Canada ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
November 2003	A study for the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment ("Climate, Nature, People: Indicators of Canada's Changing Climate") reported that from 1900 to 1998, there had been an increase in average temperatures in southern Canada of 0.9 degrees. During the period 1948 to 1998, the northwest and west regions got hotter, and the northeast (eastern Baffin Island, northern Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador) got cooler. Since 1950, precipitation had increased in most of the country by 5 to 35 percent. West coast sea temperatures had risen by 0.9 to 1.8 degrees over the last century.
November 2004	The Arctic Council published a 5 year study by 300 scientists that found a temperature increase in the Western Arctic of 4 degrees Celsius, and an increase of 2 to 3 degrees Celsius elsewhere from 1953 to 2003.
November 2004	Russia ratified the Kyoto Protocol. This allowed the Protocol to become international law ninety days later, on February 16, 2005.
December 2004	Naomi Oreskes of the University of Colorado published a study in "Science" that examined abstracts published in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 1993 to 2003 containing the words "global climate change". Of the 928 abstracts that were studied, none disagreed with the consensus view about the role of greenhouse gases in causing global warming.
January 2005	The European Union started a trading system for greenhouse gas emissions. All large industrial firms participate. The European Commission sets a cap on emissions, and issues permits for emissions based on the cap.; Permits can be traded. Initially, too many permits were issued, driving down the price of permits.
April 2005	The (Liberal) Government under Prime Minister Paul Martin announced its "Project Green". By this time, Canada needed a reduction in emissions of 270 million tonnes. The plan envisaged a reduction of 45 million tonnes from the large final emitters. The auto industry agreed to reduce emissions by 5.3 million tonnes by 2010. The Plan envisaged spending of $10 billion. The Climate Change Fund was intended;to buy credits. The Partnership Fund was expected to invest in emission reduction projects. The One Tonne Challenge remained, as did subsidies for renewable energy.
June 2005	The Royal Society in the United Kingdom issued a report which addressed ocean acidification due to increasing carbon dioxide. It urged action to prevent carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere to protect the oceans.
June 2005	The United States Conference of Mayors adopted the Climate Protection Agreement, in which cities committed to the reduction of emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Over 900 mayors have signed on to the Agreement.
July 2005	The G8 meeting in Perthshire, Scotland focused on climate change.
November 2005	The Executive Council on Climate Change, released a statement that accepted the scientific recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, endorsed the Kyoto process, and urged governments to create a system that would build on the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, such as emission trading.; It also called for investments in carbon capture and storage. Signatories included the presidents of Alcan, BC Hydro, Shell, Bombardier, Desjardin Group, DuPont, Falconbridge, Home Depot, the Power Corporation and several insurance companies.
December 2005	Harry Bryden of the United Kingdom's National Oceanography Centre reported that the Atlantic Ocean's meridional overturning circulation had slowed by about 30 percent overall from 1957 to 2004. About half the slowdown was within the study's margin of error, but the other half of the slowdown represented a major concern.
January 2006	After an election, the Conservative Party of Canada formed the Government of Canada under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
April 2006	The National Post published on April 6th an open letter to Prime Minister Harper seeking public consultation on the scientific foundation of the federal government's climate change plans. On April 18th, ninety signatures representing almost all of Canada's climate and atmospheric science community urged the federal government to develop an effective strategy to deal with aspects of climate that will affect both Canada and the rest of the world. Canada's leading scientists apparently did not see the need for public consultation on the foundations of climate science.
April 2006	The Conference of Parties, the United Nation body responsible for negotiation the next phase of emissions after the Kyoto Protocol, met in Bonn, Germany. Canada assumed the presidency of the Conference, led by Rona Ambrose, the (Conservative) Minister of the Environment.
May 2006	Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" was released in theatres. The DVD was subsequently released in November 2006.
May 2006	Jonathan Gregory and Philippe Huybrechts reported in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" that if global warming of 1.9 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels occurs, than the Greenland ice cap passes a point of no return and will eventually melt, causing sea levels to rise seven metres.
September 2006	Malte Meinshausen, based at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, found that to keep global warming less than 2 degrees Celsius with a 60 percent probability, atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalents would need to be stabilized at 450 parts per million or less. Current emissions of carbon dioxide equivalents are 455 parts per million, and climbing at 2 parts per million per year.
September 2006	Prime Minister Stephen Harper indicated a total misunderstanding between weather and climate when he told a Quebec newspaper: "(Climate science) is a complicated subject that is evolving. We have difficulties in predicting the weather in one week or even tomorrow. Imagine in a few decades."
September 2006	Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development noted that impacts, benefits and costs of climate change will not be shared equally by all Canadians, and that there would be winners and losers.
October 2006	Nicholas Stern, former chief economist for the; World Bank, reported to the British Government that the cost of abating climate change would be 1 to 3 percent of global gross domestic product, while the cost of doing nothing would be 20 percent of global gross domestic product. The report was criticized for insufficiently discounting the future.
October 2006	A study ocean temperatures reported in Geophyisical Research Letters that the upper ocean waters had cooled by 0.02 degrees Celsisus betwenn 2003 and 2005. Subsequent analysis suggested that the oceans had not cooled. The previous observation had been based on faulty measurements.
February 2007	The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its Fourth Assessment Report on climate change. It stated: "Warming of the climate is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea levels.... Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."
March 2007	The City of Toronto released a framework leading to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990 levels by 2050.
March 2007	An Ipsos Reid poll found that climate change topped health care as the primary concern of Canadians.
April 2007	The (Conservative) Government of Canada released a paper ("The Cost of Bill C-288 to Canadian Families and Business") outlining the economic cost to Canada of meeting the Kyoto Protocol targets for 2008-2012. Prime Minister Harper told reporters "such policies would cause a big recession ... equivalent to the recession of the early 1980s.
April 2007	The (Conservative) Government of Canada released its climate action plan entitled "Turning the Corner: an action plan to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollution." The document pledged to reduce emissions by 20 percent below the 2006 level by 2020, and by 60 to 70 percent by 2050. (Most governments express emission reduction targets in terms of 1990 emissions levels, in line with the Kyoto Protocol.) The mechanism for reducing emissions was to be emission intensity reduction targets of 6 percent from 2006 to 2010 and 2 percent per year thereafter. Firms that did not necessarily have to meet emission targets, but had various options addressing the situation. In proprosing a regulatory approach, the policy acknowledged that voluntary reductions and government subsidies were insufficient to reduce emissions.
May 2007	Marika Holland of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research and colleagues reported that most of the climate model simulations used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Fourth Assessment Report underestimated the actual retreat of the Arctic sea ice.
June 2007	The (Conservative) Government of Canada shut down the Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network, which had been established in 2001. The Government claimed the Network had fulfilled its mandate (although one could dispute whether the impacts of climate change on Canada and how Canada might adapt are fully understood.) It also did not approve requests for funding from the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Studies.
June 2007	The C.D. Howe Institute released a report by Mark Jaccard and Nic Rivers. The report concluded that government plan "Turning the Corner" would miss the Government's emission target for 2020 by 200 megatonnes, and would not in fact reduce emissions below 2006 levels. This contradicted Government claims that the plan would reduce emissions by 20 percent below 2006 levels.
June 2007	The G8 leaders agreed to consider halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050
June 2007	The Government of Quebec announced that it would add a carbon tax on fossil fuels sold in the province. The tax was intended to generate funds for projects such as public transit that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
July 2007	Mike Lockwood and Claus Frohlich conclude in an article in the "Proceeding of the Royal Society" that over the past twenty years, all trends in the sun's activity have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rate of global warming. In 1991, Danish scientists Eigil Frus-Christensen and Knud Larsen had noted a correlation between the length of sunspot activity and northern hemispheric temperature from 1860 to 1980. This article had been used to refute the argument that the combustion of fossil fuels by humans was responsible for global warming. However, the original article contained errors, and when these errors were corrected, the correlation was less impressive. When the data were updated to from 1980 to 2000, the correlation was negative.
July 2007	(Conservative) Prime Minister Harper announced the ecoEnergy for Biofuels Program. The Program included subsidies for renewable alternatives to gasoline, as well as support for the advancement of the next generation of biofuels and capital incentives to provide farmers with opportunities to invest directly in biofuels. The Program was put forward as a climate change initiative, despite the obvious fact that biofuels ultimately emit greenhouse gases,require emissions in their production, and do not contain the energy per emission of fossil fuels..
June 2007	Canada's Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act came into force The Act required the Minister of the Environment to prepare and implement an annual climate change plan to address sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, and to report on the implementation of the previous year's plan. The Commission of the Environment and Sustainable Development was required to report on the implementation of the plans.
August 2007	Ka-Kit Tung and Charles Camp of the University of Washington in Seattle analysed satellite data on solar radiation and surface temperatures over the past 50 years. They found that global average temperatures oscillated between 0.2 degree Celsius between high and low points in the solar cycle, and that an extra 0.9 watts per square metre of heating on the earth's surface produces an immediate warming of 0.16 degrees Celsius in the atmosphere (and a subsequent warming as a result of warming of the oceans). This finding provides an indicator of climate sensitivity from real world observations. Most estimates of climate sensitivity have been based on models. Tung and Camp found that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would raise global temperatures between 2.3 and 4.1 degrees Celsius. .
September 2007	Nobel Prize winner Paul J Crutzen and other researchers calculated that biofuel production and consumption could release more greenhouse gases than they saved. By 2007, 20 percent of corn production in the United States supported biofuel production.
October 2007	The Intergovernmental Plan on Climate Change was announced as the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Al Gore.
October 2007	The Canadian Council of Chief Executives issued a statement calling for aggressive action to tackle climate change, drive energy innovation and strengthen economic performance. The statement called for a national plan to deal with global warming, and noted that everyone would have to accept their share of the responsibility. Thirty-three Chief Executive Officers on the Council's Task Force on Environmental Leadership, representing many of Canada's top corporations, signed the statement.
November 2007	The Government of British Columbia introduced its Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act. It set an emission reduction target of 80 percent of 2007 levels. It came into force on November 29, 2007.
November 2007	The Governors of six midwestern states and the premier of Manitoba signed a regional agreement (the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord) to cap greenhouse gas emissions through an emissions credit trading scheme by 2010..
November 2007	The Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change issued a "synthesis report" intended as a summary of the findings presented in three working group reports in February 2007. Among other things, the synthesis report removed an upper bound for sea level rise that had been in the initial reports. This was in response to criticism that growing evidence of the instability of major ice sheets, and a recent doubling of the rate sea level rise, had made the February findings out of date.
November 2007	Leaders from 150 of the world's largest corporations, including Coca Cola, Dupont and GE, issued the Bali Communique, which called for a comprehensive, legal binding United Nations framework to tackle climate change, emission targets guided primarily by science, and industrialized countries to make the greatest effort. They communique noted that only a comprehensive, legally binding United Nations agreement could provide business with the certainty it needs to scale up global investments in low carbon technologies.
December 2007	Approximately 200 of the leading scientists from around the world signed the Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists. It stated that the prime goal of the new international climate regime should be to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial temperatures, that current understanding of climates requires that carbon dioxide equivalent levels in the atmosphere need to be 450 parts per million or less, and to reach this goal, global emissions must peak and then decline within the next 10 to 15 years.
December 2007	The 13th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change met in Bali to develop a new international framework to address global warming. For its non-performance, the (Conservative) Government of Canada won 4 first place votes, 3 second place votes, and 7 third place votes. Each day, the international organization Avaaz.org gave first, second and third place awards to countries that did the most to block progress. Canada's position was that it would only agree to binding targets if the developing world agreed to binding targets. It resisted attempts to include specific references to 25 to 40 percent reduction targets by 2020. It blocked efforts to include language calling for global emissions to peak in ten to fifteen years. It cited the Montreal Protocol on ozone depletion as an example to follow (although the Montreal Protocol committed the developed world to eliminating ozone emissions before developing countries).
January 2008	In "Getting to 2050; Canada's Transition to a Low Emission Future", the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy recommended that Canada reduce its greenhouse gas emissions through market based mechanisms (carbon tax or cap and trade approaches), regulatory mechanism where market approaches were not expected to work, and other means.; The report was requested by the (Conservative) Government of Canada.
January 2008	The (Conservative) Government responded to the report of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy by ignoring, without giving reasons, the recommendation related to the carbon tax.
February 2008	The Government of British Columbia announced that it would establish a revenue-neutral carbon tax, effective July 1. The tax of $10 per tonne of carbon emissions would increase by $5 per tonne in each of the next four year.
March 2008	Environment Canada scientists were given a directive that they could not respond to media questions concerning their science without going through media relations in Ottawa. This effectively muzzled the scientists.
March 2008	The (Conservative) Government of Canada published details about how it intended to implement the "Turning the Corner" policy. "Turning the Corner" policy envisaged an 18 percent reduction in emissions for every unit of production by companies in regulated industries. The plan announced details including how the targets will apply for each industry, how the offsets and trading system would work, and how how credits would be given to companies for early action. The system would allow companies to meet emission reduction targets by in-house reductions, contributions to a capped, time-limited technology fund, domestic emissions trading and offsets, and access to the United Nations Clean Development Fund. Regulations were scheduled for finalization in 2009 for implementation on January 1, 2010. The (Conservative) Government also announced requirements that new oil sands projects starting operations in 2012 would require carbon capture and storage, and that the construction of new dirty coal plants after 2011 would be banned. A task force with provinces and industry would also be set up to reduce emissions in the electricity sector.
March 2008	The Montreal Climate Exchange announced that it intended to create Canada's first carbon market, subject to regulatory approval.
June 2008	Liberal Pary leader Stephane Dion announed the Party's "Green Shift" plan. It called for a carbon tax of $10 per tonne of carbon dioxide initially, rising to $40 per tonne. The plan envisaged tax reductions to offset the increased costs to individuals and families
August 2008	The (Conservative) Government of Canada released a draft of the first of three guides that will lead to the creation of Canada's "Offset System" for greenhouse gases. This guide outlined how to measure carbon dioxide reductions that would qualify for credits. Two other guides were promised: one for project proponents and another for verification bodies.
December 2008	In a statement to a United Nation climate change conference, the (Conservative) Government of Canada committed to a reduction of greenhouse gases by 50 percent by 2050 and by 20 percent by 2020. (what was the basis?) It also committed to working with Canada's provinces and territories to establish a North America wide cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases.
January 2009	Jerry Mitrovica and colleagues from the University of Toronto noted that if sea levels rise because of the melting of ice sheets, the rise would not be evenly distributed. The east coast of Canada and the United States would experience the brunt of the sea level rise because the shrinking ice sheet will reduce its gravitational pull, causing the water to move northward, and the redistribution of a large mass of water would alter the earth's spin, creating bulges of water in the east coast of Canada and the United States. In a sea level rise of 5 metres, the east coast of Canada and the United States would see an additional 1 to 2 metres.
March 2009	A major climate meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark heard that recent measurements of sea levels showed a rise of 3 millimetres per year since 1993, an amount which exceeds forecasts from the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 (18 to 59 centimetres by 2100).
April 2009	The (Conservative) Government of Canada announced that Canada will introduce regulations under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the automotive sector. The regulations would apply to 2011 model years.
April 2009	The United States Environmental Protection Agency decided that six greenhouse gases, particularly in relation to automobile emissions, were a danger to the environment and human health. In 2007, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency could regulate greenhouse gases if they were found to be toxic. The decision was in response to the case Massachusetts V EPA.
May 2009	The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development reported on Environment Canada's climate change plans for 2007 and 2008. This audit was required under the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act. Among other things, the audit found that expected reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the climate change plans were overstated.
June 2009	The (Conservative) Government of Canada announed its "Offset System". Under the proposed system, companies subject to greenhouse gas emissions regulations would be able to purchase offset credits on the carbon market and use the credits for compliance with the regulations.
June 2009	The American Clean Energy and Security Act (also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill) was passed by the United States House of Representatives.
August 2009	Canada's Premiers met in Saskatchewan to discuss, among other things, climate change. They agreed to "work with the U.S. on a continental approach."

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