Signed, Sealed & Delivered – Oct 5th: Climate Treaty Comes into Force Nov 4, 2016

On Wednesday, October 5, 2016, in New York, UN Secretary General  Ban Ki-moon announced that the Paris Climate Agreement will come into force within the stipulated thirty days on November 4th as more than 55 parties representing over 55% of emissions had ratified the treaty.  

With the instruments of ratification submitted at the UN General Assembly by the European Union, Austria, Bolivia, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Malta, Nepal, Portugal and Slovakia the treaty was set on track to be ratified ahead of the Marrakesh Climate Summit (COP 22) to be held between November 7th and 18th. Thus with 74 parties (73 countries and the EU) ratifying the treaty representing over 55% of global emissions ratified the treaty signed by 195 countries on 46th Earth Day on April 22, 2016. 

The past month saw a whole spate of announcements of ratification of the treaty by big powers and Green House Gases (GHGs) emitters starting with US and China announced jointly by their presidents at Hangzhou, China, before the G-20 summit, then by Brazilian president Michel Temer, and Indian  prime minister Narendra Modi.

China represents 20.09% of global GHGs emissions
USA represents 17.89%
India represents 4.1%
Brazil represents 2.5%

This means that now nations will have to put into actions their intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs).

The 22nd Conference of Parties (COP22) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at Marrakesh, Morocco will require nations to provide the roadmap to "the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius."