NEW YORK – Following a United Nations General Assembly special event Wednesday, the Paris Agreement on climate change is almost certain to enter into force by the end of 2016. That milestone will occur 30 days after 55 nations representing at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions have formally joined the accord. As of Wednesday, 60 nations representing 47.76 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions have done so.
Other nations indicated at the U.N. General Assembly this week that they will soon join the agreement, suggesting entry into force could happen in time for the next session of the Conference of the Parties (COP22) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change being held in Marrakesh, Morocco, from Nov. 7-18.
According to a U.N. media report, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, the European Union, France, Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Poland, and South Korea have committed to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to deposit their instruments of ratification this year.
Additionally, Theresa May, in her first address to the U.N. as the United Kingdom’s prime minister, pledged Tuesday that her nation would join the agreement in 2016 as well. “We will continue to play our part in the international effort against climate change. And in a demonstration of our commitment to the agreement reached in Paris, the U.K. will start its domestic procedures to enable ratification of the Paris agreement, and complete these before the end of the year,” she said. The U.K. is responsible for 1.55 percent of global emissions.
If only the non-EU nations make good on their pledge the emissions ticker will sit at 54.87 percent.
The EU is something of an unknown at this point as its ratification of the agreement is more complicated. Initially, it was understood that all European Union member states would have to first ratify the agreement at the domestic level before the EU as a party to the agreement could ratify as a whole.
However, it was announced during a press conference Wednesday that the EU will join the agreement before all of its member states have ratified at the domestic level. It remains unclear how the emissions contributions of the EU member states then will be factored into the 55 percent threshold.
“Following the European Union’s leader meeting in Bratislava last weekend we are working to speed up the European Union’s ratification process and I am optimistic that our institutions can have their approval procedures carried out in the next weeks,” Miguel Arias Cañete, commissioner for climate action and energy with the European Union, said during the briefing. “I will attend the environment leaders’ meeting in Brussels next week where our member states will discuss the European Union ratification, hopefully approve it, so that the European Parliament can endorse it the week after and that would complete the European Union ratification.”
The Brussels meeting would determine how the emissions percentages would be tallied, Cañete told reporters after the conference.
It also remains unclear how the U.K. will factor into the agreement. The nation voted in June to leave the European Union but has not begun the process of doing so yet. It is unknown whether the U.K.’s 1.55 percent will be factored individually or with the EU. “The U.K. is still a member,” Cañete said.
In any case, COP22 will be important to the future of the agreement. The Paris Agreement left a few key questions on the table, including how nations are to report progress on their commitments via a transparency mechanism and issues related to adaptation to climate change and climate-related loss and damage. Draft decisions on these issues are being worked on by the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement and will be transferred to the Paris Agreement parties when the deal enters into force.