Now, the United Nations Weather Agency has said that in the current year, August equaled July as the hottest month in recent times.
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Hopes for the early entry into force of the universal climate Paris Agreement will be boosted this week with a special meeting at the United Nations on 21 September where at least 20 countries are expected to announce they have ratified the agreement, and others will commit to ratifying it before the end of 2016.
Scientists know climate change is a threat.
Credit: Matt A.J.
Ban, who has made climate change a top priority since he became secretary-general almost 10 years ago, urged world leaders in his keynote speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday to bring the Paris Agreement into force by the end of the year.
Once the Paris Agreement enters into force countries will have to provide further details on some of the implementation rulebooks and then evolve the system to take on new dynamics over time. The letter comes as Earth just posted the warmest August in 136 years globally.
The vulnerability of the climate pact shows efforts to curb warming’s impacts remain beholden to the whims of elections and personalities.
Clearly, by belatedly joining the Paris Agreement, the USA and China turned the page from making commitments to delivering action. Even without withdrawing formally, a Trump administration could undermine the agreement by abandoning rules, incentives and programs created to reduce pollution, preventing the USA from living up to its new commitments to the climate. It has led the region in deploying clean energy, with pioneering projects and policies in renewable and nuclear energy, energy and water efficiency, and carbon sequestration an was the first in the region to set a clean energy target, of 24% by 2021. His administration considered it a “political” arrangement, not a treaty.
“I would like to affirm that Korea will exert every possible effort with the aim of ratifying the agreement by the end of this year”, the president said.
She extolled President Sirleaf for submitting the Paris Agreement to the National Legislature for timely endorsement and ratification.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, a recipient of the National Academy’s Public Welfare Medal and the director of the Hayden Planetarium in NY, endorsed the letter in a press release (though he did not sign onto it). “Since Paris doesn’t commit people to much of anything anyway, it would be stupid beyond belief for him to withdraw – and there wouldn’t be much reason for people to try to save it”. It would mean that the first universal legal agreement to address climate change that includes all major countries in concerted efforts to reduce their climate pollution would be in force – a critical moment in efforts to address climate change. Harvard professor Robert Stavins said that and other measures could “all but ensure” that America would fail to live up to its commitments under the Paris agreement.
It also features universality as both developed and developing countries pledged to join the fight against climate change.
Earlier this month, the United States and China formally joined the agreement, with Brazil following shortly thereafter.
The agreement enters into force 30 days after at least 55 countries, accounting for 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, deposit their instruments of ratification or acceptance with the Secretary General during the special event on 21 September organised by United Nations.
She added that the European Union could now help the agreement reach the 55 per cent threshold.
While developing nations are allowed more flexibility due to rising population and pollution levels resulting from economic growth, there is a need to make a careful assessment of total cost of polluting with fossil fuels and the cleanup thereafter and hence decide their fossil-fuel-based energy profile carefully.
NEW YORK-Presidents and prime ministers, environmental advocates and entrepreneurs have descended on the Big Apple to help the landmark Paris climate deal take force and discuss new ways of reducing greenhouse gases.
This could involve a confirmation to the United Nations of the overall European Union emissions reduction target of 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990, with precise details of the split by member country to follow later, according to Runge-Metzger. It is present here and now, in our own country, in our own states, and in our own communities. Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution requires Senate concurrence for all treaties.
She said: “By ensuring a managed and controlled global migration response – and at the same time investing to tackle the underlying drivers of displacement and migration at source – we can reject isolationism and xenophobia, achieving better outcomes for all of our citizens – and particularly for the most vulnerable”.
If the USA withdrew from or undermined the Paris agreement, reprisals from other countries may be sharp – but they would probably be indirect.
Ban, along with others, hailed the leadership of ratifying countries.
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The research found that shifting to a mostly vegetarian diet made of fruits, vegetables, legumes and starches could make a large dent in the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.
