The UN Climate Treaty

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

This global convention between countries across the world to tackle climate change was launched at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Shared concerns that human activities were adversely affecting our climate and causing irreversible change led to the creation of a specific global convention to address the problem. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was not easy to get all countries to agree. However, on 21 March 1994 the treaty took effect after 165 states signed up to it. To date, 189 countries (out of 191 UN member countries) have ratified the treaty, giving it legal force in their own countries. The signatories also include the United States and Australia.

The aim of the Convention was to stabilise global warming gas concentrations; but it didn't specify the limit of these concentrations.

The agreement only stated such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient:
"… to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner".

The treaty had 2 positive outcomes: almost every government on Earth is a party to the Convention and it led, in 1997, to the creation of the Kyoto Protocol, the mechanism by which the UNFCCC plans to reach its aim.