WASHINGTON - Nearly 150 nations plan to attend a
signing ceremony for the global climate agreement at UN headquarters
next week, France's environment minister Segolene Royal, the official
overseeing the process, said on Friday.
Dignitaries including French President Francois Hollande and
United Nations Saecretary General Ban Ki Moon arrive to the COP 21, UN
conference on climate change on November 30, 2015
"We have 147 confirmed to sign on April 22, including about
50 heads of state," said Royal, president of the UN climate change
process told reporters at a press conference in Washington.
"That means that momentum for the Paris accord has not
subsided," said Royal, referring to the international meetings last
December where the agreement was hammered out by global leaders.
Royal said the ceremony should afford world leaders the opportunity to issue "a strong declaration" on carbon pricing policy.
The goal, she said, should be to set an "elevated, stable,
discernible and coordinated" carbon price as a way to encourage the
development of clear energy.
Under UN agreement, the host of the yearly climate COP
(conference of parties) undertakes to make the event "climate neutral"
by reducing emissions as much as possible.
At the Paris gathering -- dubbed COP21 for the 21st
Conference of Parties -- almost 200 governments reached an agreement
setting a target of limiting global warming to "well below" 2.0 degrees
Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial levels.
The historic agreement calls for a dramatic reduction in
greenhouse gases, in a concerted effort to cap global warming at "well
under two degrees Celsius" (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the
pre-industrial benchmark.
The deal only comes into force, however, if at least 55
countries responsible for at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas
emissions ratify the accord.
US President Barack Obama, who travels next week on a
fence-mending trip with ally Saudi Arabia, will not be in attendance at
the New York signing ceremony. His surrogate at the ceremony has not yet
been announced by officials in Washington.
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