China's ratifies Paris Agreement on climate change

The proposal said this would 'advance China's green, low-carbon development and safeguard environmental security'

China's legislature on Saturday ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change, officials confirmed.

Lawmakers voted to adopt "the proposal to review and ratify the Paris Agreement" at the closing meeting of the bimonthly session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, Xinhua news agency reported.

The agreement is the third document to attempt to address climate change, following the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

"Ratifying the agreement accords with China's policy of actively dealing with climate change," said the proposal. Ratification will "advance China's green, low-carbon development and safeguard environmental security", it added.

Ratifying the agreement is in China's interests and will help the country "play a bigger role in global climate governance," according to the proposal.

China signed the Paris Agreement at UN Headquarters in New York on April 22. Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, who signed the document, had announced that China would ratify the pact before the G20 summit in Hangzhou.

On December 12, 2015, after nearly two weeks of talks, 196 parties to the UN conference on climate change in Paris (COP21) reached the agreement on holding the average global rise in temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and preferably below 1.5 degrees.

To fulfil its commitments, China will have to cut carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 60-65 per cent by 2030 from 2005 levels, increase non-fossil fuel sources in primary energy consumption to about 20 per cent, and peak its carbon emissions by 2030.