Prague, July 11 (CTK) – The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Czech parliament, supported the Paris climate agreement to fight global warming in the first reading on Tuesday.
The MPs have debated the agreement for the fifth time in a row. Now the lower house committees will assess it.
The Chamber of Deputies plenary session might vote on the agreement, whose signatories have pledged to lower greenhouse gas emissions, in September.
The Senate, the upper house, approved its ratification in April.
The agreement will not mean any further burden and commitments fro the Czech Republic apart from what it has already pledged within the EU, Environment Minister Richard Brabec (ANO) said.
The Czech Republic is the last EU member state not to have ratified the agreement yet.
The opposition right-wing Civic Democrat (ODS) deputies questioned the Paris deal during Tuesday’s debate in parliament.
The agreement was signed by representatives of almost 200 countries in Paris in December 2015. It took effect last November regardless of the stance of the Czech Republic.
Fifty-five countries, which are responsible for more than 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, have ratified the agreement so far.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced in June that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and would like to negotiate different conditions. Most of the countries condemned the step.
In reaction to it, other giant air polluters, Russia and China, announced that they would stick to the agreement.
However, the U.S. can officially withdraw from the agreement as of 2020 only.
The main goal of the Paris agreement on climate protection is to keep the increase in the average global temperature below two degrees Celsius, compared with the pre-industrial period, and as close as 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Paris document replaces the Kyoto Protocol from 1997.
