At a special ceremony tomorrow at the United Nations, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to announce that he has secured enough commitments from nations to ensure that the Paris Agreement will enter into legal force this year, Coral Davenport reports for The New York Times.

“We are absolutely certain that we will have the Paris Agreement entering into force by the end of 2016,” said David Nabarro, the Secretary-General’s special adviser.

As Davenport reports, “The milestone is in reach in large part because Mr. Ban, who sees the climate deal as a centerpiece of his legacy, began a sustained push to win the formal approval of 55 countries representing 55 percent of global emissions — the threshold needed to put the accord into force. He pressed the issue personally with dozens of world leaders and with legislative bodies, including those in Russia and his native South Korea.”

Image: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon about to present his annual report on the work of the Organization, at the opening of the General Assembly’s seventy-first general debate | Image Credit: UN Photo/JC McIlwaine