President Obama will get his wish next week at the United Nations with dozens of countries committing to sign, and thus ratify, the Paris climate change deal.
But the signatures would take away a key piece of leverage from developing nations to hold the countries to account, resulting in a deal that is more symbolism than substance.
Strategists had recommended that developing nations not rush into signing the deal and, instead, wait out developed countries until they cough up funding for the Green Climate Fund, alongside a number of other obligations under the deal.
“Not signing now keeps the pressure up on developed countries to deliver on their promises and to leverage the outcomes and positions that are vital for developing countries in meeting their obligations under the [Paris accord],” the think tank Third World Network said in a recent memo.
The memo came as the U.N. announced last week that 130 countries would sign the deal on Earth Day, April 22. Fifty-five countries are required to sign the deal over the next year for the deal to go into effect.
Securing the deal’s ratification is a key milestone for President Obama’s climate agenda in his final year in office.
Because of the mass April 22 signing, the climate accord will become effective in one day, while offering little in terms of real tangible benefits for developing countries, strategists say.
Nick Chan, an adviser to Palau and other nations in U.N. climate talks, wrote that “while the signing ceremony matters as a political event … I can’t help but think that it is a bit of a red herring.”
“What ultimately matters for entry into force of the Paris Agreement is ratifications, not signatures,” Chan said. That means countries actually doing what they said they would do in December when they agreed to the deal.
The deal seeks to keep the Earth’s temperature from rising to levels that many scientists predict would be catastrophic. The deal seeks to cut the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels to ensure the temperature does not rise above 2 degrees Celsius in the coming decades. Many scientists blame greenhouse gases for driving manmade climate change.
“Rather than getting all excited about its entry into force,” he said the think tank memo “usefully highlights the substantive hurdles that are still there to be negotiated in fully elaborating the Paris climate architecture.”
He pointed out that more work needs to be done in securing funds to establish the $100-billion-a-year Green Climate Fund by 2020. The fund would be used to aid developing nations in coping with the effects of climate change.
In addition, there are a series of ongoing processes on reporting emissions and establishing methods of review, he said.
It’s a rather “long list of ‘to-dos'” to implement the Paris deal that won’t be accomplished just from signing a document, he said.
The environmental group Greenpeace appeared to concur with Chan, tweeting out Chan’s point over the weekend that what matters is ratifications, not signatures.
