India said it will ratify the Paris Agreement next week, bringing the world’s first climate change agreement very close to entering into force.
The agreement, signed in the French capital in December, needs 55 countries accounting for 55 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions to ratify the agreement for it to take effect. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the world’s second biggest country would ratify the agreement on Oct. 2.
India is the world’s third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter, with about 5 percent of global emissions, and had been reluctant to sign it. With the top two, China and the United States, already on board, it would be the final big push to the get the deal over the 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions threshold. Sixty-one countries representing 48 percent of emissions have ratified the agreement.
President Obama and many members of his administration who worked on the deal were hopeful the Paris Agreement would enter into force by the end of 2016. Modi’s announcement on Sunday means the deal is close to having enough countries to cross the threshold and enter into force months early.
“Ratification is yet to be done and India too is yet to do it. I announce that India will ratify the decision on Oct. 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi,” Modi said on Sunday, according to the BBC.
The Paris Agreement hopes to hold global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, a mark that scientists believe may be overly ambitious. Each of the 196 countries that signed the nonbinding deal had to come up with their own plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The United States’ contribution includes the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal power plants 30 percent by 2030. Many critics of the deal have wondered why the United States has made such promises when other countries, such as India and China, may not live up to their end of the bargain.
Other criticisms include the fact that the deal is not legally binding and has no formal punishment mechanism for countries that don’t abide by their emissions reductions plans. Critics also have ripped the agreement’s plan to send aid from rich countries to poorer countries to help them stave off the effects of climate change.
However, many environmentalists from around the world see the Paris Agreement as a vital first step in uniting the globe in addressing climate change. The countries that have signed the agreement will meet every five years to review their progress and possibly make increasingly bigger strides toward cutting down on carbon emissions. Many scientists blame greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels for driving manmade climate change.
