With all the hubbub surrounding the US presidential election there seems to be little room left for news about the climate, however important. Yet, today, november 4th 2016, an important milestone was reached. Today, much sooner then anyone could have hoped for, the Paris Climate Agreement came into force.
Although agreed upon and signed by Heads of State in 2015, this in itself was not legally binding. In most countries, an act of parliament is necessary for that country to ratify the agreement, that is to declare it legally binding and commit to drawing up and enforcing the necessary laws and measures. The agreement stipulated that it would come into force when it was ratified by at least 55 countries, together producing 55% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. It is this state of affairs which was reached today.
So let us bring out the champagne and rejoyce, for once. Whatever its shortcomings, there is virtually noone in the world of scientists and eco-activists who would deny that this agreement is very important and far reaching. The Paris conference was the 21st of the parties to the Kyoto agreement of 1992 and since that date tens of thousands of scientists, civil servants and ngo-members, supported by many millions of concerned citizens, have worked ceaselessly to get to where we are now.
I feel endebted toward all these people and I am very, very grateful.
It is the first time in human history that a treaty was signed by virtually the whole world. (With 197 signatories, there’s not much opposition left.) OK, it took a global threat affecting us all, but ‘we’ did it! Despite differences of opinion, conflicts, outright wars even. Today I allow myself to be boundlessly optimistic and happy.
Hans
Update nov. 10
In fact, the process of ratification of the Paris Agreement is far more complicated then I related above. Over sixty different mandates have to passed by the parliaments or rulers of the 197 signatories. In the unlikely event you are interested in the details of the current state of affairs, I advice the website parisagreement.org, more specifically this page:
https://parisagreement.org/negotiations-progress-tracking/