China and the United States both committed on Friday to formally ratify the Paris climate change agreement by the end of the year, raising prospects of it being realized way earlier than expected.

According to the United Nations, there were 175 nations that signed the accord on Friday and 15 of those have officially notified the UN that they had already ratified the agreement.

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The signing is just an initial step of making sure the deal agreed in Paris last December is enforced. The next step is for nations to officially ratify it, which in some countries may entail parliamentary votes. The deal needs to be ratified by at least 55 countries to represent 55 percent of the world's man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The world's top two biggest carbon emitters, China and the United States, account for 38 percent of the world's total carbon emission and both have pledged to ratify the agreement within the year.

"China will finalize domestic legal procedures on its accession before the G20 Hangzhou summit in September this year," Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli told the UN during the signing ceremony.

China is aims to reduce its CO2 emissions by 18 percent in the second half of the decade, based on its 13th Five-Year Plan.

"China has set the target of achieving the peak of CO2 emissions around 2030, making the best effort to peak earlier," Zhang said.

Meanwhile, John Kerry, US Secretary of State, formally signed the accord with his two-year-old granddaughter sitting on his lap, saying the country "looks forward to formally joining this agreement this year."

The deal aims to curb the global increase of temperature to "well below" 2 degrees Celcius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

"The era of consumption without consequences is over," Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, said on Friday. "We must intensify efforts to decarbonize our economies. And we must support developing countries in making this transition."

TagsParis Climate Change, United Nations, global carbon emissions, china, United States, Climate Change