UNITED NATIONS — The landmark Paris agreement on climate change will enter into force on Nov. 4, after being pushed past a key threshold Wednesday by a coalition of the world’s largest polluters and small island nations threatened by rising seas.
President Barack Obama hailed the news as “a turning point for our planet,” and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the agreement’s strong international support a “testament for the urgency of action.” Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech, called it: “A moment of bright hope in the increasingly discouraging landscape of climate science.”
U.N. Spokesman Farhan Haq said the EU, Canada and Nepal would deposit their instruments of ratification Wednesday, edging the percentage of emissions by ratifying countries past the 55 percent threshold needed for the treaty to take effect.
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