China, US formally enter landmark climate deal

The United States and China have both formalized their ratification of the Paris Agreement, a key step by the world’s two biggest polluters that aims to help bring the climate change accord into force this year. The papers certified the US and China have taken the necessary steps to join the Paris accord that set nation-by-nation targets for cutting carbon emissions.

“The signal of the two large emitters taking this step together and taking it early, far earlier than people had anticipated a year ago, should give confidence to the global communities and to other countries that are working on their climate change plans, that they too can move quickly and will be part of a global effort”, senior Obama adviser, Brian Reese, said. Obama said the climate deal is “the moment we finally made a decision to save our planet”.

Xi, speaking through a translator, said he hoped the announcement would spur more countries to take action.

Countries that ratify the deal will have to wait for three years after it has gone into legal force before they can begin the process of withdrawing from it, according to the agreement signed in Paris.

The ceremony took place shortly after Obama arrived in Hangzhou for the annual G-20 summit.

He has invested in developing closer ties with nations in Southeast Asia, and is taking pains in his last scheduled trip to the region to reassure partners anxious about the economic and military might of China.

To build momentum for a deal, they set a 2030 deadline for emissions to stop rising and announced their “shared conviction that climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity”.

White House climate adviser Brian Deese said that because the USA and China together represent 40 per cent of global emissions it will put the world on a path to full implementation of the agreement. “Now other countries must act swiftly to ratify the deal, and to reduce their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals, according to science and equity, and therefore increasing their current pledges”.

Experts have said that target is already in danger of being breached, with the United Nations weather agency saying that 2016 is on course to be the warmest since records began. To go into effect, at least 55 countries, or those accounting for 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, need to ratify the agreement.