How each country is on track to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement can be constantly monitored online (via the Climate Action Tracker [95] and the climate clock). 19 At the United Nations signing ceremony on 22 April 2016, 175 countries signed the Paris Agreement, which appears to have ever signed an international treaty in a single day. A list of signatories can be accessed at www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/04/parisagreementsingatures/. Only Nicaragua expressed objections to the agreement at the last cop-21 plenary session and at the signing ceremony. See statement by Paul Oquist Kelley, Minister, Private Secretary for National Policy to the President of Nicaragua, at the high-level signing ceremony (22 April 2016) in webtv.un.org/search/paul-oquist-kelley-nicargua-high-level-signature-ceremony-for-the-paris-agreement-national-statements/4858083079001?term=Nicaragua. In addition, countries are working to reach „the global peak in greenhouse gas emissions“ as soon as possible. The agreement has been described as an incentive and engine for the sale of fossil fuels. [13] [14] „These are extremely important announcements in the geopolitical and climate context, and I think they can be attributed in part and centrally to the architecture of the Paris Agreement,“ said Damon Jones, head of climate diplomacy at the Cologne Institute for Non-profit Climate Analysis. In doing so, he referred to the five-year review cycle of the agreement, which requires countries to constantly improve their emissions reduction targets and make new commitments. 102 Faced with strong opposition from many states to the inclusion of a „commitment to be achieved“, the NDCs can, contrary to a proposal by Jorge Vinuales, The Paris Climate Agreement: An Initial Examination, Part II, EJIL: TALK! (February 8, 2016), on www.ejiltalk.org/the-paris-climate-agreement-an-ini-tial-examination-part-ii-of-iii/. The EU and its member states are among the nearly 190 parties to the Paris Agreement.
The EU formally ratified the agreement on 5 October 2016, allowing it to enter into force on 4 November 2016. In order for the agreement to enter into force, at least 55 countries representing at least 55% of global emissions had to file their ratification instruments. On October 5, 2016, when the agreement reached enough signatures to cross the threshold, U.S. President Barack Obama said, „Even if we achieve all the goals… we will only get to part of where we need to go. He also said that „this agreement will help delay or avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change.“ It will help other nations reduce their emissions over time and set bolder goals as technology progresses, all under a strong transparency system that will allow each nation to assess the progress of all other nations. [27] The Paris Agreement, marked as a historic agreement once adopted, owes its success not only to the return of a framework favourable to climate change and sustainable development, but also to efforts to review the management of international climate negotiations.