Veena Hudson, August 2009. COP 15 is the latest in an annual series of UN meetings that have taken place since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, aimed at coordinating international action against climate change. In 1997, the COP 3 talks resulted in the Kyoto Protocol, which came into force on 16 February 2005 and was the first serious attempt to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming.