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At the 2011 conference delegates from about 200 nations gathered together in Durban, South Africa. One of the issues left unresolved was the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement that requires major industrialized nations to meet targets on emissions reduction but imposes no mandates on developing countries, including emerging economic powers and sources of global greenhouse gas emissions like China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

In December 2011, the European Union’s highest court endorsed the bloc’s plan to begin charging the world’s biggest airlines for their greenhouse gas emissions from Jan. 1, 2012, setting the stage for a potentially costly trade war with the United States, China and other countries.

Airlines for America, an industry lobby group and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said that its members would be required to pay more than $3.1 billion to the E.U. between 2012 and 2020. It said its members would comply with the system “under protest,” but would also review options for pursuing the case in Britain’s High Court, which had referred the original complaint to the European court in 2009.

The United States has been criticized at the United Nations gatherings for years, in part because of its rejection of the Kyoto framework and in part because it has not adopted a comprehensive domestic program for reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions. President Obama has pledged to reduce American emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, but his preferred approach, a nationwide cap-and-trade system for carbon pollution, was passed by the House in 2009 but died in the Senate the next year. United States emissions are down about 6 percent over the past five years, largely because of the drop in industrial and electricity production caused by the recession.

In March 2012, the E.P.A. unveiled a draft rule that would limit carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants to 1,000 pounds per megawatt-hour.

To open an avenue to companies still planning to build coal plants, for example, the E.P.A. said it would allow new ones to begin operating with higher levels of emissions as long as the average annual emissions over a period of 30 years met the standard.

Scientists learned long ago that the earth’s climate has powerfully shaped the history of the human species — biologically, culturally and geographically. But only in the last few decades has research revealed that humans can be a powerful influence on the climate, as well.  

That conclusion has emerged through a broad body of analysis in fields as disparate as glaciology, the study of glacial formations, and palynology, the study of the distribution of pollen grains in lake mud. It is based on a host of assessments by the world’s leading organizations of climate and earth scientists.

human-related greenhouse gases — produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests.

Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders. Warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related greenhouse gases — produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests.