The United States and China, the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouses gases, will formally join an international climate change agreement on Saturday.
President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will ratify the global deal with United Nations President Ban Ki Moon ahead of the Group of 20 Conference. The formal ceremony in Hangzhou, China, ensures that the world’s two largest economies have completed the domestic processes necessary to join the agreement and can begin abiding by their promises to the Paris Agreement.
It’s a major step toward the agreement entering into effect. The deal, reached in December and signed by most of the 196 countries present in Paris, needs 55 countries and 55 percent of the world’s carbon emitters to ratify the agreement for it to enter into force.
The U.S. and China represent about 38 percent of world emissions. More than 55 countries have promised publicly to ratify the agreement by the end of the year, said Brian Deese, a senior adviser to Obama.
Deese called Saturday’s announcement a historic moment and an important signal to the rest of the world.
“The sooner the Paris Agreement actually enters into force, the sooner the parties can work on the implementation issues that need to be hammered out,” he said.
The agreement tries to limit global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius. Many scientists believe humans are driving climate change through the burning of fossil fuels, releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and subsequently causing the globe to warm.
Each country came up with its own plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. But the commitments are not legally binding and critics say the deal lacks teeth.
The agreement also contains commitments from rich countries to send money to poorer countries for them to develop more clean energy sources. Those financial commitments are also not legally binding.
The countries agreed to meet every five years to reassess their greenhouse gas reduction commitments with an eye toward ramping up the reductions.
Deese said the decision to ratify the agreement in China was another major moment in the climate change relationship between the two countries.
“We have effectively demonstrated that, as the world’s two largest emitters and economies, if we come together we can help move the world forward on combatting climate change,” Deese said.
He added that the deal’s ratification by the two countries would increase momentum for upcoming negotiations on hydrofluorocarbons, a type of greenhouse gas that is 10 times more potent than carbon dioxide and is used for cooling, and emissions from commercial airliners.
He also is hoping that the ratification will push other countries to ratify the agreement.
“What you’ve seen is momentum toward moving more quickly,” Deese said in response to a question about India’s progress toward ratifying the agreement. “I’m hoping what you’ll see after [the] announcement is more momentum.”
Fossil fuel proponents in the United States immediately hit back at Obama’s decision to fully join the agreement.
Jay Lehr, science director at the free-market think tank the Heartland Institute, said it’s an “absolute disgrace” for Obama to join the agreement without Congress’ consent. The agreement was specifically crafted as an executive agreement that wouldn’t require congressional approval.
“The treaty was a sham from the beginning, which would foist more and more economic harm on the poorest of the poor around the world,” Lehr said. “Vast resources have been spent on a problem – human-caused catastrophic climate change – that does not exist. It has no scientific validity but continues to rob more than a billion people in the world who have no electric power or access to adequate sanitation and water supply.
“Human-caused global warming is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on society.”
Meanwhile, environmentalists cheered the day as a signal that the agreement soon will be in effect.
“Logistically, negotiations on the agreement’s detailed rules will likely take another year or two to finalize, and all countries will need to raise the ambition of their commitments under the agreement if we’re to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and reach a goal of net zero global warming emissions by mid-century,” said Aleden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“But this is an important step forward that reinforces the U.S. and China’s continued leadership in building a robust, durable international climate framework.”
