U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and French President Francois Hollande are scheduled to offer opening remarks at the April 22 daylong signing celebration for the Paris climate change agreement. Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, will also offer comments when the opening ceremony begins at 8:30 a.m. at U.N. headquarters in New York, according to a UNFCCC press release.
Over 130 of the nearly 200 member nations to the UNFCCC have already said they would sign the agreement on April 22, its first day of availability, including top emissions producers China, India, and the United States. The signing ceremony is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Afterward, Ban will host a luncheon with senior government, private sector, nongovernmental, and U.N. participants “to underline the critical importance of climate action by non-Party stakeholders,” the release states.
The afternoon will feature a “High-Level Event on Climate Implementation” from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., followed by a closing ceremony with comments from Ban and the presidents of the 21st and 22nd sessions of Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC. The Paris Agreement was completed during the 21st session in Paris last fall, while the 22nd session is scheduled for Nov. 7-18 in Marrakesh, Morocco.
The Paris Agreement, in which states pledged to take national steps to combat climate change, will enter into force 30 days after no fewer than 55 party states, representing at least 55 percent of global emissions, sign it and submit domestic instruments of ratification, acceptance, or approval.