More than 50 countries sign climate change agreement

WASHINGTON - More than 50 countries, accounting for nearly 80 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, have signed on to an agreement brokered in Copenhagen late last year to curb climate change.

Their combined efforts, if they came to pass, would dramatically reduce the emissions scientists blame for global warming, but not enough to hold global temperatures to levels scientists say are needed to minimize risks of catastrophic drought, flooding and other effects.

Still, the number of nations signing on, along with the amount they pledged in reductions, buoyed many environmentalists following the raucous Copenhagen talks, the two-week summit in December that ended without an official pact among the 193 nations present. Instead, they reached a voluntary accord, brokered by President Barack Obama and a group of major emitters including China and India, that requires each nation to sign on and pledge to reduce carbon emissions. Critics questioned how many nations would sign on to the voluntary accord.

"What we now know that we did get out of Copenhagen was clarity of what countries are going to be doing to fight climate change," said Keya Chatterjee, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Climate Change Program.

The situation for climate activists, she added, is "much better than we had a couple months ago. But it's still not where we need to be."

The countries that met a deadline Sunday to formally join the so-called "Copenhagen Accord" include the United States, China, India, Japan and the nations of the European Union, the United Nations announced yesterday.

Each nation set its own emissions-reduction pledge. Fast-developing countries such as China promised to limit emissions as a share of their growing economies, while wealthy nations such as the United States pledged reductions from historic levels.

The limitations of the Copenhagen outcome were on display yesterday. The accord is not legally binding. It has no enforcement provision, though it does require countries that sign on to allow international scrutiny of their emissions reduction progress.

In addition, many of the pledges are contingent: The United States, for example, refuses to set a concrete target until Congress passes a climate bill, and Canada's pledge is linked to America's.

Even at their most stringent, the pledges do not meet the accord's own stated goal of holding warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

The list of countries not signing on to the accord includes OPEC nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, which environmentalists do not expect to join. Some midsize nations are widely expected to sign on eventually, including Turkey and Malaysia.