Senator Johnson-Smith signed the agreement at a special event convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the UN headquarters in New York. „We received comments from the GA indicating the obligations that the country would have under the agreement. We must now conclude a series of consultations with the various stakeholders that would play a crucial role in implementing these commitments,“ said Colonel Oral Khan, Technical Director of the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation. (From The Gleaner`s website) The Paris Agreement, to which Jamaica is a party, is an agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that deals with the reduction, adaptation and financing of greenhouse gas emissions from 2020. To date, 195 countries have been declared signatories to the Paris Agreement. Jamaica signed the agreement but did not ratify it. November 4, 2016 will go down in history as an important date: the day the Paris Agreement on climate change comes into force. This agreement is a final step for world leaders and governments to try to limit global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius. They also pledged to reduce CO2 emissions until the world`s temperature stabilizes at 1.5 degrees Celsius. Some background information provided by: unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php Secretary of State, Senator Kamina Johnson-Smith, was among the representatives of more than 150 countries that signed the agreement. COP22 is the popular acronym for the 2016 UN Climate Change Conference. Now that a sufficient number of countries have approved and ratified the Paris Agreement, COP22 will lead them to channel efforts – in practice – to reduce CO2 emissions in their own countries.

That is why some stakeholders have stressed the importance of ratification. Countries that have not ratified the agreement are not supposed to have as strong a say in agreed or rejected procedures. In addition, the agreement aims to strengthen countries` capacity to cope with the effects of climate change. In order to achieve these ambitious goals, adequate financial flows, a new technological framework and an improved framework for capacity building will be put in place, supporting the action of developing and most vulnerable countries, in line with their own national objectives. The agreement also provides for greater transparency of measures and support through a stronger transparency framework. She said that ratification of the Paris Agreement should provide a sustainable framework for the proclamation of sustainable political, legislative and programmatic measures to mitigate these and other effects of climate change in Jamaica. The Paris Agreement came into force on 4 November 2016, 30 days after at least 55 parties to the agreement took into account at least 55% of the world`s greenhouse gas emissions that had submitted their instruments for ratification, acceptance, approval or membership of the custodian. The pandemic has also had an impact on viable rural farms, which rely mainly on the climate-sensitive fishing and agriculture sectors,“ he said.

The nation is threatened by intensifying hurricanes, rising sea levels and a drying trend across much of the island, he said. However, the UK itself risks missing the 2020 deadline in the Paris Agreement for the presentation of an updated NDC.