India Ratifies Paris Climate Change Agreement On Mahatma Gandhi's Birthday

India finally ratified the Paris Agreement of Climate Change on October 2, Sunday, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The United Nations New Centre noted that the country decided to join the climate accord by ratifying the agreement on the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, who lead the independence movement and pioneered the philosophy of non-violence in India.

"There is no better way to commemorate the great Mahatma Gandhi and his legacy of peace for people and planet," Jan Eliasson, UN Deputy Secretary-General said. India accounts for 4.1 percent of carbon emissions around the globe, and their action put the "55 percent" threshold that much closer, as the Agreement now only needs slightly more than 3 percent to reach its goal requirement.

India's ratification was not a surprise, though. According to BBC, Prime Minister Narendra Modi already announced last month that they were planning on ratifying the agreement on Gandhi's birthday - and the official ratification was a mere formality. Overall, the announcement put India as the 62^nd country to ratify the agreement.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated India in a statement, saying that "India's leadership builds on the continued strong political momentum from Paris for urgent global action on climate change." He also called on the rest of the parties to accelerate their own domestic procedures to finally join the agreement this year.

The US and China, meanwhile, both formally joined the Paris Agreement earlier, and were together responsible for 40% of the world's carbon emissions. The European Union is also expected to be next to ratify the agreement, and if so, will mean that they can take the approvals past the 55 percent emissions threshold.

The Paris Agreement aims to keep global temperature increase below two degrees Celsius, and to peak greenhouse gas emissions and achieve a balance to sink them in the second half of the century, with reviews regarding the progress slated to be done every five years. Once the deal comes into force, the countries that ratified the agreement will have to wait at least three years before they can opt out.