The United Nations is in the forefront of the effort to save our planet: from providing and disseminating greater knowledge about man-made climate change and its required countermeasures, to urging crucial political action from the world’s leaders.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention’s 1997 Kyoto Protocol are major steps in the UN’s commitment to stop climate change and set emission reduction targets for industrialized countries. As of October 2009, 184 nations have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The December 2009 Climate Change Convention in Copenhagen and the Millennium Development Goals represent UN endeavors to ensure environmental sustainability and counteract climate change in the near future.

The United Nations Photo Library (www.un.org/av/photo/) holds a collection of approximately 800,000 photographs dating back to the mid-1940s chronicling the history of the Organization and its work. The collection includes coverage of historic UN meetings and events, as well as a wide array of field coverage from its earliest days.

The Photo Library's mission is to make its collection available to media organizations, governments and non-governmental organizations, researchers and civil society at large, in order to foster public understanding of the work of the United Nations and its goals.