The 21st Conference of Parties (COP21), under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, delivered a global agreement to limit future global warming to under 2° C above pre-industrial levels. The formal adoption of the agreement on Friday, April 22 by the international community signifies a noteworthy step in its efforts to mount a unified stance against global warming.
World leaders gathered at the United Nations on Friday for the two-day meeting and by Saturday night, the Paris Agreement, a landmark global treaty to limit climate change which was negotiated at the COP-21 Summit in Paris in November-December 2015 was approved.
The pact was signed by 175 countries in what was the largest number of nations ever to sign an international document in a single day, a figure that exceeds the previous record of 119 signatures set for an opening day signing for an international agreement set by the Montego Bay Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982.
In the past, such pacts have required developed economies like the United States to take action to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but they exempted developing countries like China and India from such obligations. This time, even these countries were part of the signing countries.
More than 60 Heads of State and Government, including President of the French Republic François Hollande, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US Secretary of State John Kerry, attended the meeting in New York.
Ratification Next
The next step in the process is for the individual countries to ratify the agreement in order to make it legally binding. The signatures of at least 55 countries are required in order to ratify the agreement and it must cover 55% of emissions. Countries can ratify at any time after having signed the Paris Agreement and ratification is expected to take some time as it is a far more complicated step in the course of action.
15 countries arrived at the U.N. meeting with their instruments of ratification ready to go, and they were submitted immediately after signing. These included small island states like Marshall Islands, Barbados, Fiji, Tuvalu and Mauritius, as well as Somalia, areas most threatened by the impact of climate change. According to World Resources Institute data, these countries altogether account for not more than 0.04 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The signing process is open only until April 21, 2017 but there is no specific deadline for ratification. It is expected that the dual conditions — minimum 55 countries with at least 55% of global emissions — will be met before the lapse of the Kyoto Protocol in 2020, with the Paris Agreement coming into effect at that time. Countries can keep ratifying and joining the Agreement after this as well.
Some major countries, including France, the U.S. and Canada, have pledged to ratify the deal by the end of the year.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon scheduled the meeting on April 22 to coincide with Earth Day, an annual event that marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970, and to serve as a reminder that climate change action needs to continue at the highest level.
2015 Hotter than 2014
Statistics back up Moon’s concern for immediate climate change activity. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, each of the past 11 months was warmer than the 20th-century average. NASA statistics showed that 2015 was even hotter than the previous record-setting year of 2014.
Scientists say that the Paris Agreement is only one part of the solution to global warming. It will succed in cutting global greenhouse gas emissions by about half, sufficient to hold off an increase in atmospheric temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the point at which, they claim, the world will have reached a point of no return as far as food and water shortages, rising sea levels and other dire consequences of an excessively hot atmosphere.
According to Moon, polluting countries don’t seem to be taking the situation seriously enough and resist the commitment to greening their economies that could change the Paris deal from a test of global cooperation to a turning point in global warming.
In the US, President Barack Obama’s climate plan has met resistance by the Supreme Court, where the regulation of emissions from coal-fired plants has been blocked. There are some countries, however, that have succeeded in their efforts. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has pulled out of scores of companies for being over-reliant on fossil fuel, and the Rockefeller Foundation has divested from fossil fuel entirely.
Moon reminded all the participants that the signing is only the first step in the process and that rapid and efficient action is needed if the Agreement is to succeed.