On Earth Day April 22th 2016, 175 countries met at the United Nations’ Headquarters in New York to sign the Paris Agreement on Climate Change . This is the first time an agreement is signed by so many countries in one day , as highlighted by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
The Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the trip in person to sign the agreement along with other leaders such as French President Francois Hollande and US Secretary of State John Kerry. (link)
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change – negotiated in December 2015 by 195 countries (virtually all countries in the world) – endorsed the objective of limiting the increase in global temperature to 2 ° C while pursuing efforts not to exceed 1.5 ° C. (link)
Although symbolic, the meeting helped maintaining the global momentum around the fight against climate change. Indeed, for the agreement to enter into force , it must be ratified by at least 55 % of the signing countries representing at least 55 % of the world emissions. Several countries have already indicated their intention to ratify the text by the end of 2016. This is the case of China, which is the first GHG emitter in the world, and the US, second in ranking. These two countries alone account for nearly 40% of the global emissions.
By Pascal Geneviève, General Manager at Carbon Consult Group