Nicaragua To Sign Paris Agreement Leaving United States Alone With Syria
Reports coming out of Central American country Nicaragua say that the country’s President Daniel Ortega has confirmed his country will finally sign the Paris Climate Agreement, leaving the United States and Syria as the only two countries in the world not to have signed it.
It’s important to remember off the top in this story that Nicaragua was never a country who did not believe in the Paris Climate Agreement on its own, rather, simply that it did not go far enough and did not put enough pressure on rich Western nations. However, according to reports from the Nicaraguan newspaper El Nuevo Diario, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega announced on Monday that his country would finally sign the Agreement in solidarity with countries most vulnerable to climate change.
“We will soon adhere, we will sign the Paris Agreement,” Ortega told official media. “We have already had meetings addressing the issue and we have already programmed the adhesion of Nicaragua and the signing of the Country Agreement.”
Earlier this year President Ortega again rejected the Paris Climate Agreement saying that “it was not very strict with the richest nations of the planet.” Ortega has also explained that his issue with the Agreement is that “it is a declaration, a proclamation” rather than an obligation to adhere to promises being made. However, lately, his opinion has obviously been moved to reconsider and he has now firmly planted his country’s decision to finally sign as a move to stand in solidarity with countries likely to be most affected most quickly.
“We have to be in solidarity with this large number of countries that are the first victims, who are already the victims and are the ones who will continue to suffer the impact of these disasters and that are countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, of the Caribbean, which are in highly vulnerable areas,” Ortega said.
Ortega further intends to continue to point out the Agreement’s “great weaknesses” even though they will now be a signatory to the Agreement.
This leaves Syria as the only country never to have signed the Agreement, and the United States as the first and only country to have once signed it but to have withdrawn from the Agreement.
Image Credit: Jonathan Scott Chinn via Flickr CC BY 2.0
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