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India Joins Paris Climate Agreement, Honoring Gandhi
October 2, 2016
India Joins Paris Climate Agreement, Honoring Gandhi
NEW YORK, New York, October 2, 2016 (ENS) – India today ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change at UN Headquarters in New York, bringing the treaty’s entry into force “tantalizingly” close, said UN General Assembly President Peter Thomson.
“The country is embarking on a sustainable development pathway. Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi calls it ‘development without destruction,’” said UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson after witnessing India becoming the 62nd country to deposit its ratification during a commemorative event on the International Day of Non-Violence.
India chose the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, who led the country’s independence movement and pioneered the philosophy and strategy of non-violence, to join the climate accord.
“There is no better way to commemorate the great Mahatma Gandhi and his legacy of peace for people and planet,” said Eliasson.
The Agreement was adopted in Paris last December by the 195 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
It calls on countries to combat climate change and limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels.
The Agreement will take effect 30 days after at least 55 countries, responsible for 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, deposit their instruments of ratification. The world’s top two polluters, China and the United States, have already formally joined the pact.
Read more at Environment News Service.
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