Paris Climate Accord Just Passed a Major Milestone Maddie Stone - Gizmodo
go to original September 21, 2016

Video statement by Enrique Peña Nieto, President of the United States of Mexico at 2016 UN Climate Change High-Level Event (United Nations)

Good news, Earthlings: the <a target="_blank" href="http://gizmodo.com/the-paris-climate-agreement-has-been-adopted-1747460706>Paris climate agreement had passed a critical milestone toward adoption. At a UN General Assembly meeting in New York this morning, 31 nations officially signed onto the accord, making it very likely that the deal will enter legal force this year.

You may remember that the Paris agreement - an international pledge to limit us to 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, by weaning every nation off fossil fuels - was adopted at an international summit in December 2015. But before it can go into effect, it needs to be formally ratified by 55 countries that together account for 55 percent of global carbon emissions.

The accord received a major boost earlier this month, when the United States and China, two carbon behemoths that together account for nearly forty percent of global emissions, jointly announced their intention to ratify the deal. Before today, 27 other nations that collectively represent some 2 to 3 percent of global emissions had also signed on.

Now, the chorus of agreement has grown much stronger. The 31 new pledges, which include Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Bangladesh, mean that a total of 60 countries representing 47.7 percent of emissions have now signed on. Given this progress, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and secretary of state John Kerry are both confident that the deal will be fully implemented in the coming months, according to The Guardian.

Read the rest at Gizmodo

Related: Paris Climate Change Deal Passes Key Threshold: With 60 Countries Ratified, Treaty Hits 1 of 2 Benchmarks Needed to Bring It Into Effect (Associated Press)

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