ABSTRACT
The French scientist Baron Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier is accredited as the first to describe the 'greenhouse effect'. John Tyndall further developed the theory in the 1860s by measuring the absorption of heat radiation by CO2 and water vapour, while Svante Arrhenius calculated at the end of the 19th century that a doubling of CO2 would increase the temperature of the planet by between 5°C and 6°C. Scientific knowledge was extremely facilitated by vast improvements in General Circulation Models (GCMs) which, while still subject to considerable uncertainty, led to increased confidence by scientists in climate change predictions. In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) published its seminal report, Our Common Future, identifying climate change as one of four major environmental threats facing society, alongside urban pollution, acid rain and nuclear accidents. The final Rio Declaration was not as far reaching as most nations would have wanted.
