Which Countries Won't Be Signing the Paris Climate Deal on Earth Day?

An unprecedented number of countries will be gathering in New York City tomorrow to sign the Paris climate deal.
After significant progress was made this past December in agreeing the landmark deal, more than 167 countries—including past climate villains Iran, Canada and Australia and polluting giants China, the U.S. and the EU—are set to sign the Paris agreement on its opening day.
But despite this, there are still some countries that remain absent from the UN’s official list of attendees—and this includes some pretty big emitters and fossil fuel producers.
So while much focus has been on who will be signing the Paris agreement on April 22, here we take a look at those that might not be.
Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
There have been a lot of questions about whether or not Russia would attend.
Up until April 20, it was the largest emitter and producer absent from the UN’s list is Russia, dwarfing other non-signatories, representing more than five percent of annual global emissions.
But according to a new list updated by the UN, Russia has now indicated that it will be attending the New York ceremony tomorrow.
The country’s president Vladimir Putin has previously described climate change as a conspiracy to diminish the country’s power, but changed his tone (though not necessarily increasing Russia’s ambition) at the opening ceremony of COP21 in Paris.
Russian newspaper Kommersant hinted at progress there reporting that some ministries have begun submitting draft implementation measures for the Paris agreement.
As Vladimir Chuprov, Head of the Energy Unit at Greenpeace Russia told DeSmog UK, a Russian Federation governmental order stated that the country would sign the agreement.
World Wildlife Fund’s Alexey Kokorin echoed Chuprov’s comments, saying Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Khloponin will sign on behalf of Russia in spite of hard lobbying of coal and steel companies.
There are however still some Commonwealth of Independent States which have also not indicated whether they will attend, including Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
Saudi Arabia, OPEC and the Middle East
Saudi Arabia, with almost 1.2 percent of global emissions leads the list of the five OPEC nations and two other Middle Eastern states currently not confirmed to attend the event.
The country’s minister for Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi indicated in 2015 that Saudi Arabia would have to stop using fossil fuels at some point.
Despite this the country faced accusations of trying to wreck the climate deal at the Paris COP21 climate conference. The Guardian reported that Wael Hmaidan, director of Climate Action Network, said they were “undermining the position of other Arab countries.”
Meanwhile, Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, is a major oil exporter and the second largest OPEC member who may not put pen to paper tomorrow. The country significantly out-emits the other African non-signatories, with 0.66 percent of global annual emissions.
Ecuador, one of the smallest OPEC members is the only South American country that hasn’t indicated it will sign.
Others include Iraq with more than 0.5 percent of global emissions, Qatar and non-OPEC countries Syria and Yemen, with emissions between 0.2 percent and 0.05 percent of the global total.
The Other No-Shows
According to the latest UN update there are still some sub-Saharan African countries that may not be at the New York ceremony. This includes Botswana and Zambia.
Last month, the think tank Third World Network called on developing nation to boycott the signing.
Speaking to ClimateHome on the call to boycott, an advisor to African nations said their slowing of the ratification process could lead to countries that stand to lose the most from climate change being excluded from talks on the deal’s implementation.
Others nations still missing from the list include Trinidad and Tobago and Nicaragua.
Michael Jacobs, visiting professor at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change told DeSmog UK that Russia, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC states will not like the rhetoric on decarbonization and the necessity of strong climate action which will surround the event. But it makes no difference.
Whether or not any of these countries show up on Friday, some 83 percent of states and 88 percent of emissions will still be represented at the ceremony.
And as Carbon Brief points out, the agreement is open for signatures at the UN headquarters for a year and that it’s even possible to accede to the agreement after this.
The next, more important step, is for those countries to get approval at home.
Once 55 percent of signatories covering 55 percent emissions do so, the agreement will come into effect after 30 days.
So far eight countries, Barbados, Belize, Fiji, The Maldives, Nauru, St Lucia, Samoa and Tuvalu have indicated they will deposit their instrument of ratification after the signing ceremony.
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- Redwoods are the world's tallest trees.
- Now scientists have discovered they are even bigger than we thought.
- Using laser technology they map the 80-meter giants.
- Trees are a key plank in the fight against climate change.
They are among the largest trees in the world, descendants of forests where dinosaurs roamed.
Pixabay / Simi Luft
<p><span>Until recently, measuring these trees meant scaling their 80 meter high trunks with a tape measure. Now, a team of scientists from University College London and the University of Maryland uses advanced laser scanning, to create 3D maps and calculate the total mass.</span></p><p>The results are striking: suggesting the trees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">may be as much as 30% larger than earlier measurements suggested.</a> Part of that could be due to the additional trunks the Redwoods can grow as they age, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a process known as reiteration</a>.</p>New 3D measurements of large redwood trees for biomass and structure. Nature / UCL
<p>Measuring the trees more accurately is important because carbon capture will probably play a key role in the battle against climate change. Forest <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/carbon-sequestration-natural-forest-regrowth" target="_blank">growth could absorb billions of tons</a> of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.</p><p>"The importance of big trees is widely-recognised in terms of carbon storage, demographics and impact on their surrounding ecosystems," the authors wrote<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank"> in the journal Nature</a>. "Unfortunately the importance of big trees is in direct proportion to the difficulty of measuring them."</p><p>Redwoods are so long lived because of their ability to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cope with climate change, resist disease and even survive fire damage</a>, the scientists say. Almost a fifth of their volume may be bark, which helps protect them.</p>Carbon Capture Champions
<p><span>Earlier research by scientists at Humboldt University and the University of Washington found that </span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716302584" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Redwood forests store almost 2,600 tonnes of carbon per hectare</a><span>, their bark alone containing more carbon than any other neighboring species.</span></p><p>While the importance of trees in fighting climate change is widely accepted, not all species enjoy the same protection as California's coastal Redwoods. In 2019 the world lost the equivalent of <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">30 soccer fields of forest cover every minute</a>, due to agricultural expansion, logging and fires, according to The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).</p>Pixabay
<p>Although <a href="https://c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/publications/1420/files/original/Deforestation_fronts_-_drivers_and_responses_in_a_changing_world_-_full_report_%281%29.pdf?1610810475" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the rate of loss is reported to have slowed in recent years</a>, reforesting the world to help stem climate change is a massive task.</p><p><span>That's why the World Economic Forum launched the Trillion Trees Challenge (</span><a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a><span>) and is engaging organizations and individuals across the globe through its </span><a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o00000vOf09AAC/trillion-trees" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uplink innovation crowdsourcing platform</a><span> to support the project.</span></p><p>That's backed up by research led by ETH Zurich/Crowther Lab showing there's potential to restore tree coverage across 2.2 billion acres of degraded land.</p><p>"Forests are critical to the health of the planet," according to <a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a>. "They sequester carbon, regulate global temperatures and freshwater flows, recharge groundwater, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers."</p><p><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor">Reposted with permission from the </em><span><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/redwoods-store-more-co2-and-are-more-enormous-than-we-thought/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></span></p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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