The 1972 Verenigde Naties Conferentie over het Menselijk Leefmilieu first introduced the term 'sustainable development'. The conference also aimed to draw attention to increasing global environmental problems, such as growing amounts of waste, water and air pollution and the reduction of biodiversity.

The first climate conference was held in Geneva in 1979. The World Meteorological Organization organized this meeting to better gather scientific knowledge about the climate.

This conference also led to the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988. This independent, scientific body informs the United Nations about climate change. The IPCC still exists today and consists of thousands of scientists from around the world. The IPCC's sixth, and thus most recent, report came out in 2021.

In the 1990s, the Netherlands was internationally regarded as a leader in environmental policy. In 1991, it first made a commitment to reduce emissions: the amount of CO₂ had to be reduced by 3-5% by 2020 compared to 1990.

The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) realized a global endorsement of the threat of climate change. The main goal of the treaty is to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions to prevent dangerous climate change. Starting in 1995, countries meet annually in the Conference of Parties (COPs) to further define the implementation of the treaty.

The Derde Energienota not only formed the basis of the current Netherlands energy policy, with for example the liberalization of the energy market, but also set a new CO₂ reduction target: stabilization in 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

The international Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon in 1997. The Netherlands had to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 6% in the period 2008 - 2012. Up to half of this target was allowed to be achieved through reductions in other countries.

In January 2005, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) was launched. This was the first, major emissions trading system, with the goal of reducing emissions in Europe in a cost-effective way.

The Balkenende-IV administration came up with a new climate ambition in the werkprogramma ‘Schoon en Zuinig’ (2007): 30% fewer greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 compared to 1990. This would preferably have to be arranged in a European context.

With the Akkoord van Parijs (2015), the international community agreed, at COP21, to limit climate change well below 2°C and preferably limit the increase to 1.5°C.

In 2013, partly due to society's desire to make energy supplies more sustainable, the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER) took the initiative to establish the Energy Agreement (2016). This agreement didn't include new emission targets, but did contain agreements for energy savings (100 petajoules by 2020) and renewable energy production (14% by 2020 and 16% by 2023).

The Energierapport (2016) made the goals of the Energy Agreement official policy, along with the then-European ambition to reduce CO₂ emissions by 40% by 2030 and by 80-95% at the European level by 2050.

The Energieagenda (2016) outlined the contours of energy policy until 2050. For each "functionality" (low temperature heat, high temperature heat, power and light, and transport) a transition path towards 2050 was defined.