Canada, EU, China to co-host September climate meeting

In this photograph taken on August 11, 2017, Pakistani children cool themselves off in a stream during a hot day in Sibi, in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province. Scientists have warned that swathes of South Asia may be uninhabitable due to rising temperatures by 2100 -- and in the desert community of Sibi in southwest Balochistan province, where the mercury hit 52.4 degrees Celsius (126 Fahrenheit) this summer, it feels like they could be right. (AFP)

MONTREAL: Environmental ministers representing Canada, China and the European Union will co-host a meeting in Montreal later this month to move forward with the implementation of the Paris climate change agreement.
The ministerial meeting will include representatives from some 30 countries, according to Canada’s minister of environment and climate change, Catherine McKenna.
“This meeting brings together major economies and key climate actors to advance the implementation of the Paris Agreement and demonstrate continued commitment to global action on climate change,” she said in a statement.
The meeting follows US President Donald Trump’s announcement in June that the United States would abandon the painstakingly-negotiated 2015 global pact.
The accord commits signatories to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, which is blamed for melting ice caps and glaciers, rising sea levels and more violent weather events.
They vowed steps to keep the worldwide rise in temperatures “well below” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial times and to “pursue efforts” to hold the increase under 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The Montreal meeting will precede an international summit slated to be held in France on December 12 to review progress on the climate accord.