Abstract: There have been 27 international climate change conferences since 1992 (the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro that year and the 26 subsequent Conferences of the Parties [COPs], the most recent in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021), and three international treaties on the issue – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1992), the Kyoto Protocol (1997), and the Paris Agreement (2015). Yet, during that time, atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased from ~350 ppm to ~420 ppm, i.e., by 20%, or 0.66% p.a., and is still increasing. The purpose of this paper is to find out why.