Hangzhou:China ratified the Paris climate change agreement on Saturday ahead of the 11th G20 Summit, a meeting of the world’s leading heads of states, reiterating its pledge to tackle the issue that’s bringing irreversible changes to the world’s environment.
The National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s Parliament, ratified the document at a meeting in Beijing.
“Ratifying the agreement accords with China’s policy of actively dealing with climate change,” Chinese official news agency Xinhua quoted the proposal as saying, adding that addressing climate change would help the country realise sustainable development.
The ratification will “further advance China’s green, low-carbon development and safeguard environmental security,” it said. The Xinhua report added that China had signed the Paris Agreement at UN Headquarters in New York on April 22, Earth Day.
“Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, the special envoy of President Xi Jinping, signed the document and announced that China aimed to finalise domestic legal procedures to ratify the pact before the G20 summit in Hangzhou,” the report said.
China has committed to reducing its carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 60-65% by 2030 from 2005 levels, increase non-fossil fuel sources in primary energy consumption to about 20%, and peak its carbon emissions by 2030.
“These targets were reflected in China’s intended national determined contribution (INDCs) and also in its 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020),” the report said.
China and India had issued a joint statement during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China in May 2015, signalling a convergence of views on the problem. It pressed developed countries to take the lead in climate change.
“The two sides urged the developed countries to raise their pre-2020 emission reduction targets and honour their commitment to provide $100 billion per year by 2020 to developing countries,” the statement said.
“China and India are undertaking ambitious actions domestically on combating climate change … despite the enormous scale of their challenges in terms of social and economic development and poverty eradication,” it added.
The Paris agreement that was sealed in December last year after two weeks of intense negotiations needs to be ratified by 55 countries, representing 55% of global emissions, in order to come into effect. The global pact aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep global temperature increases to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius.
Before China, 23 nations – including North Korea – had ratified it. According to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, together they accounted for just 1.08% of global emissions.
The Group of 20 nations is responsible for about 80% of global carbon emissions. The United States, the second biggest emitter, is also set to ratify the agreement in a bid to put the deal into legal force before the end of the year.
China is responsible for just over 20% of global emissions while the US 17.9%. Russia accounts for 7.5%, and India 4.1%.
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