section_path: Objectives/Environment and climate
section_name: Environment and climate
paragraph_text: Environment and climate
  
  Beginning with the formation of the UN Environmental Programme (or the UNEP) in 1972, the UN has made environmental issues a prominent part of its agenda. A lack of success in the first two decades of UN work in this area led to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992; which sought to give new impetus to these efforts. In 1988, the UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization (or the WMO), another UN organization, established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assesses and reports on research on global warming. The UN-sponsored Kyoto Protocol set legally binding emissions reduction targets for ratifying states.