29 September 2016 – Senior United Nations officials today announced that the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change signed by world leaders this past April is closer to entering into force, as India – a country that produces more than four per cent of global emissions – plans to submit its ratification at the end of the week.
It's a very, very interesting period, said David Nabarro, the UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, at a press briefing at UN Headquarters in New York this afternoon, during which he told reporters that India will submit its ratification on 2 October, the birthdate of Mahatma Gandhi.
As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his speeches at various points last week, we are tantalizingly close to the Paris Agreement entering into force, he added.
Adopted in Paris by the 195 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at a conference known as COP21 this past December, the Agreement calls on countries to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low-carbon future, as well as to adapt to the increasing impacts of climate change. Specifically, it seeks to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and to strive for 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The pact – which was signed in New York on 22 April by 175 countries at the largest, single-day signing ceremony in history – will enter into force 30 days after at least 55 countries, accounting for 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, deposit their instruments of ratification.