Just 10 months after nearly 200 nations adopted the accord, entry into force of the Paris Agreement on climate change has been triggered. A total of 11 new parties Wednesday ratified the agreement, bringing the count to 74 nations representing a total of 58.82 percent of global emissions. That surpasses the 55/55 threshold required to trigger entry into force, which is now expected on Nov. 4.
“The entry into force of the Paris Agreement is more than a step on the road. It is an extraordinary political achievement which has opened the door to a fundamental shift in the way the world sees, prepares for and acts on climate change through stronger action at all levels of government, business, investment and civil society,” Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in a press release.
The Paris Agreement, which was adopted in December at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, puts in place a legal framework under which nations will pursue nationally determined climate action goals. The stated intent of the agreement is to keep global temperature rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, with an ambition to limit it to 1.5 degrees. This is the first international climate agreement to apply to both developed and developing nations.
When the agreement was initially drafted, it was to enter into force in 2020, after the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol. However, during negotiations at COP21, it was decided that the agreement would enter into force 30 days after 55 nations representing at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions ratified it on the domestic level. Even with the adoption of the 55/55 rule, the agreement was not expected to enter into force until at least 2017 or 2018 at the earliest.
The agreement opened for signature on April 22 and was immediately signed by 175 nations, breaking U.N. records. Since then 16 additional nations have signed the agreement.
The number of nations ratifying the agreement shot up quickly following the April ceremony, but most of those countries account for very little emissions. During a special event last month at United Nations headquarters in New York, the first threshold was surpassed.
The emissions percentage, meanwhile, got a massive boost earlier in September when China and the United States ratified. They are the world’s top two emitters, responsible for 20.09 percent and 17.89 percent, respectively.
In the past several days, it became clear that the trigger was imminent. On Friday, European Union environmental ministers voted to allow the bloc to join the agreement before each of its 28 member states had ratified at the domestic level. Sunday’s ratification by India, the world’s No. 3 emitter, pushed the dial to 51.89 percent, extremely close to entry into force. On Tuesday the European Parliament voted in support of the environmental ministers’ approval of the EU’s ratification, setting the stage for the EU and seven of its member states – Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Malta, and Portugal – to push past the second threshold on Wednesday.
New Zealand also joined the agreement Tuesday, ahead of the EU, while Canada, Bolivia, and Nepal jumped in on Wednesday.
“Today, the world meets the moment. And if we follow through on the commitments that this agreement embodies, history may well judge it as a turning point for our planet,” U.S. President Barack Obama said during a press conference Wednesday.
Secretary of State John Kerry attributed much of the success of the agreement thus far to the active participation by the top emitters. “The reason we were able to pass the required threshold so early is that many of the largest emitters in the world – including the United States, China, India, the EU and a number of its member states – recognized the need to continue the momentum from Paris and joined swiftly to bring this Agreement into force as quickly as possible,” he said in a prepared statement.
While it seemed unlikely when it was adopted, the agreement will be in force before the next Conference of the Parties, scheduled for Nov. 7-18 in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Entry into force also serves as the initiation of the agreement’s governing body, called the Parties to the Paris Agreement, or the CMA. The CMA will consist of representatives of all the parties to the agreement that have formally joined. The body will have its first meeting at COP22.
“The speed at which countries have made the Paris’s Agreement’s entry into force possible is unprecedented in recent experience of international agreements and is a powerful confirmation of the importance nations attach to combating climate change and realizing the multitude of opportunities inherent in the Paris Agreement,” Espinosa said.
The agreement’s early entry into force also locks in the membership of all parties that have formally joined for at least four years. This is of particular interest to the United States where one of the current nominees for president, Republican Donald Trump, has stated an intention to “cancel” the accord. Now that the agreement is set to enter into force before a potential Trump presidency, his hands would be tied for at least four years.
However, because the domestic pledged in the agreement are not legally binding, Trump could simply ignore it, risking significant international backlash. In a statement released Wednesday, the Trump campaign did not double down on its pledge to cancel the agreement, but decried the Obama administration for not brining the accord before the Senate for a vote. “If President Obama and Hillary Clinton believe this global climate deal is so significant and historic, then they shouldn’t continue to avoid submitting it for a vote to the United States Senate, as the Constitution requires,” Trump said in the statement.
U.S. negotiators pushed for non-legally binding commitments in the agreement because if it included legally binding targets and timetables it would have to go before the Republican-controlled Senate for a vote. As it is written, the agreement does not need the support of the Senate.
Nations’ domestic pledges to the agreement will now hold a little more weight. During the negotiation process, participating governments submitted public “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs). Once a nation formally joined the agreement it could either submit a new commitment or simply resubmit the original pledge. These are now termed “nationally determined contributions.”
Once the agreement enters into force, the NDCs are more permanent. While nations are still allowed to adjust their NDCs after that point, they are only allowed to do so if the adjustment makes the NDC more stringent, not less.
The INDCs and NDCs that have been submitted to date do not put the world on a path to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, the stated end goal of the agreement. “Now, the Paris Agreement alone will not solve the climate crisis. Even if we meet every target embodied in the agreement, we’ll only get to part of where we need to go. But make no mistake, this agreement will help delay or avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change,” Obama said.
The U.S. has pledged to reduce the it’s greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent below 1990 levels by 2025.
The environmental community engaged in a collective back patting following the news but warned against letting efforts to address climate change lag in the wake of success. “While this milestone is certainly cause for celebration—perhaps with a glass or two of French Champagne—much hard work lies ahead. Countries must now move aggressively to implement and strengthen their emissions reduction commitments under the agreement if we are to have any chance of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.” Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a release.
