The 171 countries present to sign the deal will surpass the previous record of 119 signatures for an opening day signing of an worldwide accord set by the Law of the Sea in Montego Bay in 1982. “It will mean nothing if you return to your countries and fail to push beyond the promises of this agreement”, he said.
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French President Francois Hollande says he will ask parliament to ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change “by the summer of this year”.
At the ceremony Friday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the agreement “a new covenant with the future” and noted the large number of signatories.
“We are in a race against time”.
China, the world’s top carbon emitter, announced that it will “finalize domestic procedures” to ratify the Paris Agreement before the G-20 summit in China in September.
The historic agreement on climate change marked a major milestone on Friday with a record 175 countries signing on to it on opening day.
Most of the countries will be represented by their head of state at the signing of the Paris Agreement, showing a true commitment among the signing parties to ensure that the policies are quickly taken into account.
The agreement will enter into force once 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions have formally joined it, a process initially expected to take until 2020. Some say it could happen this year.
The agreement will feature the leading greenhouse gas emitters (being the most prominent China, U.S., Russian Federation and India) and every five years starting on 2018 a review of every signing party’s progress will be issued to the United Nations.
Kerry said the United States “absolutely intends to join” and ratify the agreement this year.
Here are some of the key elements of the Paris deal, which is the first agreement requiring all countries to join the fight against global warming.
Under the Paris Agreement, which was reached in December after lengthy United Nations negotiations, countries are required to set targets every five years to reduce their greenhouse emissions, like carbon dioxide.
“This is not a good deal for our island nations, at least not yet”, the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, Nauru President Baron Divavesi Waqa, told the gathering.
Leonardo DeCaprio is urging world leaders to leave fossil fuels “in the ground where they belong” as he tells them they are the “last best hope” for saving the planet from the disastrous effects of global warming. Global average temperatures have already climbed by nearly 1 degree C. past year was the hottest on record.
The Paris Agreement also pledges to “pursue efforts” to cap warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, a hard-fought concession to a coalition of more than 100 poor and climate-vulnerable nations.
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Fortunately, countries are increasingly turning towards renewable energy and slowly reducing their dependence on fossil fuels to curb carbon emissions.
