This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
On November 4th, the Paris Agreement will go into force after successfully crossing the threshold for entry. This threshold was reached this month on October 5th when “at least 55 Parties to the Convention accounting in total for at least an estimated 55% of the total global greenhouse gas emissions” had documented that the Agreement has been ratified within their country.
In her 2016 TED talk on the Paris Agreement, UNFCCC** Executive Chairman Christiana Figueres discusses how she turned her skepticism following the COP15 in Copenhagen into optimism. According to Figueres, she began by accepting that “impossible is not a fact… it’s only an attitude.” She then spent six years “ relentlessly” injecting optimism into the climate conversation, culminating in last year’s Paris Agreement.
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In November, the 22nd Conference of the Parties will be held in Marrakech, Morrocco. As of today, a total of 87 countries have already ratified the Paris Agreement out of the 192 that signed the agreement in 2015.
**United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change