The History of Climate Change
A timeline of how climate change has snowballed into what it is today
1712 - British ironmonger Thomas Newcomen invents the first widely used steam engine, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution and industrial scale use of coal.
1800 - World population reaches one billion.
1886 - Karl Benz unveils the Motorwagen, often regarded as the first true automobile.
1927 - Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach one billion tonnes per year.
1965 - A US President's Advisory Committee panel warns that the greenhouse effect is a matter of "real concern".
1975 - US scientist Wallace Broecker puts the term "global warming" into the public domain in the title of a scientific paper.
1987 - Montreal Protocol agreed, restricting chemicals that damage the ozone layer. Although not established with climate change in mind, it has had a greater impact on greenhouse gas emissions than the Kyoto Protocol.
1989 - Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach six billion tonnes per year.
2001 - IPCC Third Assessment Report finds "new and stronger evidence" that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause of the warming seen in the second half of the 20th Century.
2007 - The IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report concludes it is more than 90% likely that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for modern-day climate change.
2009 - China overtakes the US as the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter - although the US remains well ahead on a per-capita basis.
2011 - A new analysis of the Earth's temperature record by scientists concerned over the "ClimateGate" allegations proves the planet's land surface really has warmed over the last century.
2013 - The first part of the IPCC's fifth assessment report says scientists are 95% certain that humans are the "dominant cause" of global warming since the 1950s
2017- Multiple strings of hurricanes and large tropical storms hit the US and boarding islands causing flooding for weeks and millions of dollars in damage.
To learn more about the history of climate change on our planet, click here