U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and 174 other world leaders gathered at the United Nations headquarters on Friday, April 22, to officially sign the Paris Climate Change Agreement, which aims to mitigate the impact of global warming.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has officially signed the Paris Agreement on climate change at a United Nations ceremony in NY.
It was the largest one-day signing of an worldwide agreement, marking a first step towards binding countries to the promises they made to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
As stated, the Paris Climate Agreement will enter into force once 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions have signed it.
These parties include Barbados, Belize, Fiji, Grenada, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Nauru, Palau, Palestine, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Somalia and Tuvalu. More than 170 nations also signed the agreement. The Minister expressed hope that collective wisdom will ultimately prevail and both developed and developing nations will do their part to address the issue of climate change.
According to a report in Reuters by Michelle Nichols, “Many countries still need a parliamentary vote to formally approve the agreement, which was reached in December”. Temperature records were broken in each of the first three months of 2016, including some of the most abnormally warm months ever recorded.
If enough other countries formally join the treaty before a new president takes office, the US could be locked into the treaty for at least four years, even if Americans elect a Republican to replace Obama.
“Countries commitments on climate change will help with air pollution but will be insufficient to reduce air pollution to the levels that we are accustomed to in the West”, she said, adding that not all measures to reduce air pollution necessarily contribute to addressing climate change.
China, the world’s biggest polluter, assured that the ratification process will be completed before the G20 meeting in September. He further added that the Paris agreement’s principles are being linked with national policy towards a “green economy”, which would make a structural change in the national economic and development planning.
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New Zealand’s 2030 target, tabled during the Paris negotiations, sees it commit to reducing emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels.
