U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he was “ever more confident that the Paris Agreement will enter into force this year”, and Kerry added that he also was “absolutely confident” of that outcome.
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So far, 185 nations have signed the agreement which takes effect 30 days after 55 countries, representing 55 percent of global emissions, deposit their ratifications with the secretary-general.
He pressed the issue personally with dozens of world leaders and with legislative bodies, including those in Russian Federation and his native South Korea.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced confidence that the accord, through which countries commit to take action to stem the planet’s rising temperatures, would come into force by the end of the year.
Currently, there are 185 signatories to the Paris Agreement.
Thirty-one more countries joined the Paris climate agreement on Wednesday, bringing the total to 60 countries as the agreement moves toward entering into force.
China and the USA, the two largest emitters, joined the agreement in early September.
The agreement has closed its threshold of 55 countries, however, it still needs to hit one more important number: 55 percent. Oil-rich United Arab Emirates also ratified the deal, as did nations considered particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, such as Kiribati and Bangladesh.
We have no time. “I am confident by the time I leave office (on December 31), the Paris agreement will have entered into force”.
Complex and controversial global accords usually take several years to enter into legal force. The rapid entry into force and implementation of the Paris Agreement is critical for our national survival.
Mr Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, has vowed to pull the United States out of the accord if he is elected.
Under the rules it would take four years for the United States to formally withdraw, keeping the United States obligated to uphold the deal until the end of the next president’s first administration.
“Climate change is already risky, it has already exceeded the capacity of many countries to adapt to it, we have already lost lives, we are losing species and we have lost lands and buildings”, said Gutierrez, speaking on behalf of a troika of climate-vulnerable nations including Ethiopia and the Philippines.
The European Union has scheduled a vote for early October to approve the agreement over the objections of some states, such as Poland, which rely heavily on coal-fired power plants that are significant emitters of greenhouse gas emissions.
In his push for tangible results, major progress was made when a record 175 countries signed the Paris Agreement on Earth Day, April 22, at the United Nations headquarters.
Another concern had been Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, which advocates of the Paris deal feared would complicate the bloc’s ratification process and raise questions about Britain’s own climate policy. The success came after decades of false starts and last minute implosions on attempts to secure worldwide agreement on fossil fuel reductions.
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That’s very good news in light of the looming United States presidential election, which features a fascist tangerine who thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax and has promised to rip the Paris agreement to shreds if elected. They include Brazil, the world’s seventh largest emitter of greenhouse gases, Mexico, Argentina and Sri Lanka.
