Nicaragua to sign the Paris Agreement

During a meeting with a delegation of Senior Executives of the World Bank, the Government of Nicaragua announced that it will sign the Paris Agreement in an act of solidarity to the countries that are most valuable to climate change.

President Daniel Ortega said: "We will soon adhere; we will sign the Paris Agreement. We have already had meetings addressing the issue and we have already programmed the adhesion of Nicaragua and the signing of the Country Agreement”.

“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”.

Nicaragua and Syria were the only two states that had not signed the Paris Agreement in November 2015.

However, the reasons that the country had not signed the climate accord were not because it did not believe in climate action, but because it considered the accord unfair.

During the negotiations of COP21, Nicaragua insisted that developed countries were not doing enough towards climate change mitigation efforts, stating that the developed world should adopt stricter measures in terms of reducing fossil fuel consumption.

Paul Oquist, the Head of the Nicaraguan delegation to COP21, had also underlined that developed countries were not offering enough funding to help the developing world deploy adaptation measures, while also saying that the agreement was too weak, and that voluntary commitments will not work.

Jose Adan Aguerri, President of the Superior Council for Private Business, saluted the announcement by tweeting that it is the right decision for the Government to sign the Paris Agreement and join the global effort of the fight against climate change.

According to the latest statistics, Nicaragua produces more than 50 percent of its electricity needs from renewables.

The country has already set ambitious goals to reduce 90 percent of its power needs with clean energy by 2020, and is expected to announce its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) soon.