EU ministers agree to ratify Paris climate deal

PanARMENIAN.Net - EU environment ministers agreed Friday, September 30 to fast-track the ratification of the landmark Paris agreement on climate change, despite the fact that some national parliaments have yet to approve the deal, AFP reports.

"All member states greenlight early EU ratification of Paris agreement. What some believed impossible is now real," European Union President Donald Tusk said on Twitter.

"Victory!" tweeted French Environment Minister Segolene Royal.

Fears that the United States and China, the world's two biggest polluters, were leaving the EU behind on ratifying last year's historic deal pushed the bloc's 28 ministers to rush through the collective measure.

Around 60 countries have now committed to the landmark agreement designed to stem the planet's rising temperatures, which was sealed in December 2015 in the French capital.

"This is a historic day," EU Environment Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete told a news conference, "a day when we put behind us any doubts that the EU is ready to join the Paris climate agreement."

Seven EU countries including Germany and France have ratified the deal so far, AFP says.

The Paris accord requires all countries to devise plans to achieve the goal of keeping the rise in temperatures within two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and strive for 1.5 C (2.7 F) if possible.

Leaders of EU countries had agreed at a summit in the Slovakian capital Bratislava on September 16 that the bloc should push through ratification at a collective level as soon as possible.