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Bahrain’ s Shaikh Abdulla signing the climate deal
as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon looks on.

Bahrain signs Paris climate agreement

UNITED NATIONS, April 24, 2016

Bahrain joined 174 countries in signing the historic Paris Agreement, the first global deal on climate change, at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday.

The Paris Agreement will remain open for signatures for one year, until April 21, 2017. It will enter into force only after 55 countries representing 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions ratify the agreement.

UN climate negotiators will meet next month in Bonn, Germany to start laying the groundwork for operationalising the agreement.

The Paris Agreement includes a commitment to keep global warming to 1.5° Celsius. It is vital that countries remain focused on this goal and immediately increase their national efforts to achieve it, along with working to get the deal to enter into force, said experts.

"We heard yesterday that governments will move swiftly to get the Paris Agreement in place, and that’s good," stated Samantha Smith, leader of WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative.

"However, far more still needs to be done. Countries need to take immediate, scaled-up and collaborative action at home on renewable energy, forests and finance to avoid the very worst impacts of climate change,"
she added.
 
While the signing of the Paris Agreement makes history as an important step in global climate efforts, planetary temperatures and climate impacts are making history as well, said the experts.

Last month recorded the warmest March ever, following 11 straight months of record temperatures. One of the worst droughts ever has hit eastern and southern Africa, 93 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef has been impacted by coral bleaching, and Greenland’s ice sheet is undergoing dramatic, early season melting.

“Our political leaders agreed in Paris to try to keep global warming under 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial times. This is not just a number – it’s the difference between safety and crisis for many, particularly the most vulnerable,” remarked Smith.

“We must continue to see evidence of stronger national ambition and action if the Paris Agreement is to be more than words and signatures on paper,” noted Smith.

According to her, the world leaders speaking in New York were united in their acknowledgement of the urgency to act on climate change, calling for scaled up actions and saying political will was never stronger.
Leaders also committed to speedy national processes to ratify or approve the agreement.

"We would be pleased to see the Paris Agreement entering into force early, however this is only one part of the picture. It is even more important for countries, including the UAE, to do more nationally to increase ambition, scale up their targets before 2020 and beyond and continue to use more renewable energy," said Tanzeed Alam, the climate and energy director at Emirates Wildlife Society in association with WWF.

"New research shows that without this, we will blow past the upper limit of 1.5 C warming, and probably also 2 C," added Alam.-TradeArabia News Service




Tags: Bahrain | paris | climate change |

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