Salam in New York for Climate Pact

Prime Minister Tammam Salam traveled to New York on Thursday to participate in the ceremony aimed at signing the climate-change pact that the world adopted in principle in Paris last December.

The state-run National News Agency said Salam is expected to give a speech at Friday's ceremony, which will be attended by leaders and envoys from more than 160 countries.

U.N. officials say the signing ceremony will set a record for international diplomacy: Never before have so many countries inked an agreement on the first day of the signing period.

That could help pave the way for the pact to become effective long before the original 2020 deadline — possibly this year— though countries must first formally approve it through their domestic procedures.

The U.S. and China, which together account for nearly 40 percent of global emissions, have said they intend to formally join the agreement this year. It will enter into force once 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions have done so.

The agreement, the world's response to hotter temperatures, rising seas and other impacts of climate change, was hammered out in December outside Paris. The pact was a major breakthrough in U.N. climate negotiations, which for years were bogged down with disputes between rich and poor countries over who should do what to fight global warming.

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