China vows to ratify Paris deal before G20 talks
Print Edition
CHINA announced yesterday that it will finalize domestic legal procedures to ratify the Paris Agreement to slow climate change before the G20 Hangzhou summit in September.
The announcement came during a high-level signing ceremony of the landmark pact at the United Nations headquarters, with a record 171 countries lining up to ink the international accord.
The agreement can enter into force 30 days after at least 55 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, accounting for at least 55 percent of global emissions, take the further national step of ratifying it after signing.
A key party to the deal, China has pledged to cut its carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 60-65 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels, and increase non-fossil fuel sources in primary energy consumption to about 20 percent and peak its carbon emissions by 2030.
“The Chinese people honor their commitments. We will work hard to earnestly implement the Paris Agreement,” said Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the signing ceremony.
“We will launch a national emission trade market, substantially increase forest carbon sink. We will put in place a strict accountability system for environmental protection and ensure the implementation of all targets,” the presidential envoy said.
Zhang also stressed the importance of international cooperation on the fight against climate change.
“China will take active part in the follow-up negotiations of the Paris Agreement. We will deepen cooperation on climate change,” he said.
Leaders from 171 countries began signing the agreement yesterday as it took a key step forward, potentially entering into force years ahead of schedule.
Never have so many countries signed an agreement on the first available day. States that didn’t sign yesterday have a year to do so.
“We are in a race against time,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the gathering. “The era of consumption without consequences is over.”
Many now expect the climate agreement to enter into force long before the original deadline of 2020. Some say it could happen this year.
After signing, countries must formally approve the agreement through their domestic procedures. The UN said 15 countries, several of them small island states under threat from rising seas, were doing that yesterday by depositing their instruments of ratification.
Ban welcomed China’s pledge to take immediate action.
The United States also has said it intends to join the agreement this year.
Analysts say that if the agreement enters into force before President Barack Obama leaves office in January, it would be more complicated for his successor to withdraw from the deal because it would take four years to do so under the agreement’s rules.
Maros Sefcovic, energy chief for another top emitter, the 28-nation European Union, has said the EU wants to be in the “first wave” of ratifying countries.
French President Francois Hollande, the first to sign the agreement, said yesterday that he will ask parliament to ratify it by this summer.
“There is no turning back now,” he told the gathering.
Yesterday was chosen for the signing ceremony because it is the World Earth Day.
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