Green Diplomat
https://greendiplomat.com/academy/
Printed 23 October 2026
The Academy
Two certificate tracks for the practitioners who move from analysis into the room, and the analysts who build the evidence base behind them.
Teaching happens around a table, the way the work itself is done. Every module pairs the primary texts with an exercise, and every cohort is designed to leave with a drafted instrument: a jurisdiction dossier or a binding-framework clause, defended live.
Context
The treaties, decisions, science and national laws that shape the work. Filter by kind, or jump to a decade.
The first major UN conference on the environment opens in Stockholm. It leads to the creation of the UN Environment Programme later that year.
Convened by the World Meteorological Organization, it calls on governments to anticipate and prevent potential human-made changes in climate.
WMO and UNEP set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to assess the science, impacts and response options.
The first comprehensive assessment of climate science, which informs the negotiation of a framework convention.
The Convention is adopted at UN Headquarters and opened for signature at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992.
The UNFCCC becomes binding on its Parties, creating the Conference of the Parties as its supreme body.
The first Conference of the Parties launches negotiations on binding commitments for industrialised countries.
COP3 adopts the first protocol with legally binding emission targets for industrialised countries, and market mechanisms to meet them.
Binding targets for the first commitment period (2008–2012) take legal effect.
COP13 launches a two-year process on long-term cooperative action, in the year of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.
The first national framework law with a legally binding long-term emissions target and five-yearly carbon budgets.
COP15 ends without a new treaty; the Accord records the goal of mobilising USD 100 billion a year by 2020 for developing countries.
COP16 anchors national pledges in the UN process and establishes the Green Climate Fund.
COP17 launches negotiations on a new agreement applicable to all Parties, to be adopted by 2015.
COP21 adopts a universal agreement built on nationally determined contributions, a five-year cycle and common transparency rules.
Ratification thresholds are met in under a year, bringing the Agreement into force before COP22.
The report sets out the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C of warming and the emission reductions each requires.
COP24 adopts most of the detailed rules for implementing the Paris Agreement, including the Enhanced Transparency Framework.
An amendment to the Climate Change Act makes the United Kingdom’s net-zero target legally binding.
The amendment act sets domestic targets in law and creates an independent Climate Change Commission.
The national carbon market opens with the power sector, making it the largest emissions trading system by covered emissions.
COP26 completes the rules for Article 6 carbon markets and asks Parties to revisit their 2030 targets.
COP27 decides to establish new funding arrangements, including a fund, for responding to loss and damage.
The synthesis finds global emissions must fall about 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 from 2019 levels for 1.5°C.
COP28 concludes the first stocktake, operationalises the loss and damage fund and calls for tripling renewable capacity by 2030.
The Tribunal finds unanimously that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are marine pollution under UNCLOS, and that states must take all necessary measures to prevent, reduce and control it.
COP29 sets a goal of at least USD 300 billion a year by 2035 for developing countries, within a call to scale up to USD 1.3 trillion.
Parties submit the first reports under the Enhanced Transparency Framework, the evidence base for the next stocktake.
The IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee approves draft MARPOL Annex VI amendments that would set up a Net-Zero Framework for international shipping.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights adopts its opinion on the climate emergency and human rights, requested by Chile and Colombia; it is made public on 3 July 2025.
The International Court of Justice gives its opinion on the obligations of states in respect of climate change, requested by the UN General Assembly.
An extraordinary session of the IMO committee adjourns for one year instead of adopting the Net-Zero Framework for shipping.
The UNFCCC secretariat publishes its first synthesis of Biennial Transparency Reports (FCCC/PA/CMA/2025/16), drawing on 101 reports received by 15 April 2025.
As 2035 NDCs come in, the Global Mutirão decision calls for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035; Parties adopt 59 Belém Adaptation Indicators.
The withdrawal takes effect one year after the United States notified the UN Secretary-General, as depositary, on 27 January 2025.
The first credits under the Article 6.4 mechanism, the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism, are approved for issuance.
After a voluntary phase from 2023, large emitters in Japan enter a mandatory emissions trading phase.
Two tracks
CCPA and CGDA are Green Diplomat’s own designations; they are not accredited by, or affiliated with, any external body.
For practitioners moving from analysis into the room: how climate commitments become enforceable national instruments. The Paris Agreement as a legal system · From NDC to national statute · Negotiation craft · Transparency, MRV and the BTR · Drafting clinic.
For analysts who build the evidence base: legislative tracking, comparative policy data and the methods behind the AI Policy Radar. Comparative climate legislation · Policy data and tracking · Quantifying the gap · Carbon markets · Capstone dossier.
Explore the Academy
Every module, its primary public texts and an exercise to do: free for registered learners and self-paced. Your progress is saved to your account.
Three negotiation simulations on the real rules of climate law: an Article 6 deal, a deadlocked paragraph in the transparency talks and a carbon-pricing bill in cabinet. Choose, see the consequences, read the debrief.
Sit in on a drafting clinic, make the calls yourself, and follow the curriculum from foundations to a defended dossier.
Register interest
When the first cohort is scheduled, the people who registered hear first. Funded places are intended for practitioners from developing and emerging economies; numbers and funding are not yet confirmed.
Not legal advice. Check the live page at https://greendiplomat.com/academy/.