Global warming is an increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans. Such an increase has been going on since the mid-20th century; it is projected to continue. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) between the start and the end of the 20th century.[1][A] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century was caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation.[1] The IPCC also concludes that variations in natural phenomena such as solar radiation and volcanism produced most of the warming from pre-industrial times to 1950 and had a small cooling effect afterward.[2][3] These basic conclusions have been endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science,[B] including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.

In 2012 the Kyoto Protocol to prevent climate changes and global warming runs out. To keep the process on the line there is an urgent need for a new climate protocol. At the conference in Copenhagen 2009 the parties of the UNFCCC meet for the last time on government level before the climate agreement need to be renewed.


This image shows the instrumental record of global average w:temperatures as compiled by the w:NASA's w:Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The data set used follows the methodology outlined by Hansen, J., et al. (2006) "Global temperature change". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 103: 14288-14293.
Following the common practice of the w:IPCC, the zero on this figure is the mean temperature from 1961-1990.

Therefore the Climate Conference in Copenhagen is essential for the worlds climate and the Danish government and UNFCCC is putting hard effort in making the meeting in Copenhagen a success ending up with a Copenhagen Protocol to prevent global warming and climate changes.

The Climate Conference will take place in the Bella Center. The conference centre is placed not far from Copenhagen and near the Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup.

Governmental representatives from 170 countries are expected to be in Copenhagen in the days of the conference accompanied by other governmental representatives, NGO's, journalists and others. In total 8000 people are expected to Copenhagen in the days of the climate meeting.

The host of the meeting in Copenhagen is the government of Denmark represented by Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister of Climate and Energy and Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen. The official sekretariat is placed in connection to The Prime Ministers Office in Copenhagen. Originally the hosting of the climate conference was initiated by the former Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

The conference in Copenhagen is the 15th conference of parties (COP15) in the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The recent meeting in United Nations Climate Change Conferences was held in December 2007 in Bali.