Lucknow girl attends Paris Agreement signing at UN
UNITED NATIONS: Leaders from 171 countries signed the Paris Agreement on climate change on Friday as the landmark deal took a key step forward, potentially entering into force years ahead of schedule.
US secretary of state John Kerry, holding his young granddaughter, joined dozens of world leaders for a signing ceremony that set a record for international diplomacy: Never have so many countries signed an agreement on the first available day.
Lucknow girl Yug ratna Srivastava also attended the signing ceremony at the UN headquarters in New York. In a facebook post, she said about six to seven civil society representatives were also part of the event.
Yugratna posted a selfie captioned: “Beautiful morning at UN Headquarters. Happy Earth Day people. Smile emoticon.”
Leaders from 171 countries signed the Paris Agreement on climate change on Friday as the landmark deal took a key step forward, potentially entering into force years ahead of schedule.
US secretary of state John Kerry, holding his young granddaughter, joined dozens of world leaders for a signing ceremony that set a record for international diplomacy: Never have so many countries signed an agreement on the first available day.
“We are in a race against time,” UNsecretary-generalBanKi-moon told the gathering. “The era of consumption without consequences is over.” Many now expect the climate agreement to enter into force long before the original deadline of 2020. Some say it could happen this year.
After signing, countries must formally approve the Paris Agreement through their domestic procedures. The UN says 15 countries, several of them small island states under threat from rising seas, did that on Friday by depositing their instruments of ratification.
China, the world’s top carbon emitter, announced it will “finalize domestic procedures” to ratify the Paris Agreement before the G-20 summitinChinainSeptember.Ban immediately welcomed the pledge.
The US also has said it intends to join the agreement this year. The world is watching anxiously: Analysts say that if the agreement enters into force before President Barack Obama leaves office in January, it would be more complicated for his successor to withdraw from the deal because it would take four years to do so under the rules.