Lorraine Chow / EcoWatch & 100 News1 – 2017-09-29 21:22:30
https://www.ecowatch.com/nicaragua-paris-agreement-2487905844.html
Nicaragua to Sign Paris Agreement,
Leaving Trump Alone With Syria
Lorraine Chow / EcoWatch
(September. 21, 2017) — When President Donald Trump decided to pull out of the Paris climate agreement in June, the United States joined the only two countries of the 197 nations in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that declined to sign the 2015 accord: Syria, which has been embroiled in a full-scale civil war for six years; and Nicaragua, as its leaders felt the pact was not strong enough to fight climate change.
But now, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said his country will sign the agreement “soon,” Managua-based TV station 100% Noticias reports.
Ortega said on state TV that Nicaragua will join the global action plan to limit temperature rise to well below 2°C to avoid dangerous climate change.
He is doing so out of “solidarity” with countries that are the “first victims” to the effects of climate change and are the most vulnerable to climate-related natural disasters, including countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
As Quartz points out, Ortega’s move leaves Trump in a two-member club with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, one of the world’s most brutal dictators.
Some mixed signals about Trump’s Paris withdrawal arose last week, but a White House official said Monday: “Consistent with the President’s announcement in June, we are withdrawing from the Paris Agreement unless we can reengage on terms more favorable to the United States.”
Nicaragua to Sign Paris Climate Accord
100 News1 [Translated]
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (September 19, 2017) — The government of Nicaragua announced during a meeting with a delegation of senior executives of the World Bank that will sign the Paris Agreement, in solidarity with the countries most vulnerable to climate change, although months ago, President Daniel Ortega rejected this international agreement to consider that “it was not very strict with the richest nations of the planet”.
“We will soon adhere, we will sign the Paris Agreement. We have already had meetings addressing the issue and we have already programmed the adhesion of Nicaragua and the signing of the Country Agreement, “Ortega told official media.
The Paris Agreement provides for measures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through mitigation, adaptation and resilience of ecosystems to Global Warming, and until 3 November 2016 this international instrument had been signed by 97 parties. Nicaragua, Syria and the United States are the only countries that refused to sign the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
Ortega added, “unquestionably here we do what we can in the fight for the defense of the environment and try at least to establish a position, to hear a position.”
“We think that the fact of not signing, at that moment, does not mean that we will not formalize our decision to that statement or to that proclamation where we clearly point out the great weaknesses that it has,” the president added.
In previous statements, the head of the Nicaraguan delegation to the Paris Agreement, Paul Oquist, quoted by BBC Mundo, said that the agreement was “too weak” and voluntary commitments “do not work”.
During talks on the agreement, Nicaragua insisted that developed countries were not doing enough to reduce the use of fossil fuels.
These countries “are not offering enough funding to help the developing world adapt to the impact of climate change,” Oquist said in the Democracy Now program. Jose Adan Aguerri said in his Twitter account that the government’s decision is “correct” and celebrated “that we join as a country to the global effort.”
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