— The IPCC release the IPCC Third Assessment Report.
2002 — Earth Summit, held in Johannesburg a United Nations conference.
2003 — The world's largest reservoir, the Three Gorges Dam begins filling 1 June.
— European Heat Wave resulting in the premature deaths of at least 35,000 people.
2004 — Earthquake causes large tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, killing nearly a quarter of a million people.
— FBI initiates Operation Backfire - an anti-terrorist law enforcement operation against "Eco-Radicals."
2005 — Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma cause widespread destruction and environmental harm to coastal communities in the US Gulf Coast region.
— The Kyoto Protocol came into force on February 16 following ratification by Russia on November 18, 2004.
2006 — Former U.S. vice president Al Gore releases An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary that describes global warming. The next year, Gore is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (jointly with the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) for this and related efforts.
— The BBC's "Climate Chaos" season includes Are We Changing Planet Earth?, a two-part investigation into global warming by David Attenborough.
— The Stern Review is published. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, says that it shows that scientific evidence of global warming was "overwhelming" and its consequences "disastrous".
— World human population reached 6.5 billion[13]
2007 — The IPCC release the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
— Power Shift 2007 - the first National Youth Climate Conference, held in College Park, MD and Washington, D.C. November 2–5, 2007. Power Shift 2007: The Energy Action Coalitionsaw over 5,000 youth converge in Washington, D.C. to build their movement, lobby congress, and make a statement about the way youth feel about Global Warming.
2009 — Power Shift 2009 - The Energy Action Coalition hosted the second national youth climate conference to be held at the Washington Convention