The United States will join the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2016, White House senior climate adviser Brian Deese told reporters Monday, declining to pinpoint when exactly that would happen. “We have made the commitment that we will join in 2016 and we have made the commitment to do that as soon as possible this year. With respect to exactly when, I don’t have any announcements on that front,” Deese said during a White House press briefing.
There were unconfirmed reports late last week that China and the United States plan to formally join the agreement before the beginning of the Group of 20 Summit being held Sept. 4-5 in Hangzhou, China. “Senior climate officials from both countries worked late into the night in Beijing on Tuesday to finalise details, and a bilateral announcement is likely to be made on September 2, according to sources familiar with the issue,” the South China Morning Post reported Thursday. President Barack Obama is not scheduled to arrive in China until Sept. 3.
Deese did confirm that he was in China last week discussing climate issues and that the Paris Agreement is likely to be discussed during Obama’s visit. “I anticipate when the presidents meet, they will discuss topics that will include this issue of trying to get the Paris Agreement to enter into force as quickly as possible,” he said.
Spectators have long been waiting for such an announcement by China. During the April 22 signing ceremony at U.N. headquarters in New York, the nation pledged to join the accord before the upcoming G20 summit. The U.N. will also host a special event on Sept. 21 in New York to give nations an opportunity to formally join the agreement.
Entry into force of the Paris Agreement, which develops a framework for nations to pursue domestically developed climate mitigation and adaptation actions, is a three-step process. Nearly 200 nations adopted the deal in December at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At U.N. headquarters in New York on April 22, 175 nations then signed the accord. Now those governments need to ratify the agreement.
The deal will enter into force 30 days after 55 nations representing at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions deposit their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession with the U.N. If the 55-55 requirement is met by December, the agreement would enter into force no later than January 2017 – Obama’s last month in office. At this point, 23 parties representing 1.08 percent of emissions have taken this step.
If the U.S. and China formally join the ticker will sit at 25 nations representing 39.06 percent of global emissions. “We have now developed quite a significant record of working collaboratively with the Chinese on climate change and I anticipate that we will be able to once again demonstrate our two countries working together on this issue when the presidents meet in China,” Deese said.