NEWS that the EU Council has approved ratification of the Paris agreement on climate change by October 7, follows hot on the heels that India will do so. Together with previous joint China-US ratification in September, this means the agreement will enter into force in 2016. SA risks being left behind. Climate change is a serious problem, and the science now "unequivocally" finds that humans are causing it. Negotiations in the past 20 years have made slow progress, until the Paris agreement was signed in December 2015 — widely considered a major step forward. The agreement is a treaty in all but name, and treaties are negotiated multilaterally, but need to be ratified by countries to enter into force. In SA, that means the Cabinet sends the treaty to Parliament. For the Paris agreement, a "double trigger" is required under article 21 — 55 parties must ratify, accounting for 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The number of parties is already at 61, according to the UN Framework C...
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