Brazil ratifies Paris Agreement on climate change

The Brazilian government has ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change, which was adopted by 195 countries during a summit in the French capital last December.

"The commitment against climate change in Brazil is not by one administration but is a matter of state," Temer told the Cabinet ministers, lawmakers and environmentalists who gathered at the Planalto presidential palace for the ceremony on Monday.

Temer said that "this is not about a matter of the willingness of one or another administration," referring to the political crisis that led to the ouster of former President Dilma Rousseff, whose administration brokered the commitments Brazil made at the COP21 climate conference in Paris, EFE news reported.

Brazil agreed at the climate summit in Paris to limit annual carbon dioxide emissions to 1.3 billion tonnes by 2025, requiring a reduction of 36.1 per cent.

The South American country also agreed to cut annual emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas blamed for global warming, to 1.2 billion tonnes by 2030.

The Paris Agreement is the first-ever universal accord to combat global warming, a deal that commits nearly 200 developed and developing nations to jointly transition to a low-carbon economy.

The landmark agreement reached after nearly two weeks of negotiations in the Paris suburb of Le Bourget marked the beginning of the shift away from a development model based on fossil fuels and came after 21 years of climate summits and 12 months of intense diplomatic efforts.

The final text of the agreement set a goal of "holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, recognising that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change."

To achieve that objective, it secured commitments to battle climate change from each of the 196 parties to the agreement and requires those countries to show evidence of their compliance and make further moves to cutting their man-made greenhouse-gas emissions every five years.

The first review of national efforts to meet climate goals has been set for 2018 and the first revision of emission commitments is set for 2020.

--IANS

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