- Syria, the world's last holdout, just announced it would join the Paris agreement.
- The agreement set a goal to keep the average global temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius.
- The US is now alone in rejecting the historic climate accord.
The United States is now the only country not on board with the Paris agreement.
Syria, which has been engaged in a bloody civil war for six years and was the world's last holdout, announced it would sign up to the 2015 climate accord, delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, said Tuesday.
The US signed the agreement under President Barack Obama in December 2015 alongside 194 other nations and remains part of it, but the Trump administration has pledged to withdraw the US from it.
The Paris agreement set a goal to keep the planet from warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, with 2 degrees Celsius as the upper limit for global temperature rise.
Nicaragua initially rejected the agreement because the country's government thought it didn't go far enough, but last month Nicaraguan leaders announced their decision to join.
If the US does withdraw from the agreement, the earliest it could do so is November 4, 2020— one day after the next presidential election.
Trump has said the deal isn't "fair" to the US, even though the country has contributed more to climate change than any other nation. Just last week, federal scientists in the US sounded the alarm once again, releasing an exhaustive report cautioning that global warming was accelerating — with human activity to blame.
The Trump administration's plan to withdraw was unpopular globally. An official in France said Trump was "for the time being"not being invited to the climate-change summit in Paris next month.
SEE ALSO: Bonn talks test global resolve to fix climate, without Trump
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