UNITED NATIONS - "Today we make history," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday, marking entry into force of the Paris Agreement on climate change at a meeting with representatives of civil society working to combat rising global temperatures.
The landmark pact, only agreed to by the world's nations in the French capital on Dec. 15, 2015, already has been ratified by nearly half of them, 96 as of Thursday, according to a UN spokesman.
"Today we make history in humankind' s efforts to combat climate change," Ban told the gathering here in a UN Headquarters conference room, noting it entered into force "in record time."
A previous major climate agreement, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, took 8-years to enter into force. "This is a momentous day for all of us," said Ban, a prime mover behind the Paris Agreement. "I chose to mark it by meeting with representatives of civil society. I invited them here to thank them for their outstanding contributions and to ask how they are putting the Paris Agreement into action."
He listened as the representatives listed their major concerns in meeting the primary objective of the voluntary accord, to keep the world's temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial era levels. One of the more common problems voiced was the perennial challenge of financing the phase-out of fossil fuels.
"You showed the climate challenge stakes and the solutions," the UN chief said. You mobilized hundreds of millions of people for the cause." (Xinhua)