Georgetown, Guyana – (April 29, 2016) The Government of Guyana has endorsed the Paris Agreement, which was adopted by 195 countries on December 12, 2015 at the twenty first session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
On Friday last, President David Granger traveled to the United Nations Headquarters, Manhattan, New York, where he signed the Agreement.
The Paris Agreement is the first universal, legally binding climate agreement, which sets out a global action plan to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming. Its main aim is to keep global temperature rise this century to well below two (2) degrees Celsius and drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels. Additionally, the Agreement aims to strengthen the ability of developing countries to deal with the impact of climate change and define the role of developed countries in this regard.
The Agreement is said to be more comprehensive that the Kyoto Protocol, which was limited to assigning greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for a group of developed countries. Under the Paris Agreement, all parties will now be engaged in the fight against climate change. It envisages that the richer and developed countries will make available, financial and technological resources and assist developing and vulnerable countries tackle the effects of climate change.
It also seeks to establish a mechanism by which the climate actions of all countries can be periodically monitored and evaluated to see whether the world was actually able to combat climate change and whether actions need to be scaled up.
The Office of Climate Change has been consulted and has advised that there is no perceived obstacle to Guyana depositing its Instrument of Ratification of the Paris Agreement immediately after the signature of the President. It is the belief that such actions will only underscore Guyana’s commitment to the process and encourages other states to follow suit in order to meet the requirements for entry into force of the Agreement.
Guyana is a state party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It has actively participated in the Kyoto Protocol and is internationally recognised for its vanguard role in the fight by developing countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions despite the fact that it contributes only an appropriate 0.01 per cent of the those emissions.
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