The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. The objective of the treaty is to stabilize the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous human induced interference with the climate system. The UNFCCC was opened for signature in May 1992 subsequent to the production of the text of the Framework Convention by an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee. It entered into force on 21 March 1994 and by December 2009 the UNFCCC had 192 parties known as the Conference of Parties (Sourced from Wikipedia).
COP meetings are held annually in December at pre-selected venues around the world to assess progress in dealing with climate change globally. The 13th Conference of Parties (COP 13) in Bali, Indonesia, adopted a framework to address climate change through mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology. The framework was named after the host city and became known as the Bali Framework for Climate Change.
COP 15 in Copenhagen in December 2009 resulted in the Copenhagen Accord which was reviewed at COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico. Some agreements were made at COP 16 but there are several issues that were not concluded at this meeting and these will be tackled at COP 17 in Durban in December 2011.