Vanuatu is working on securing a UN vote to turn a landmark ruling on the climate crisis by the international court of justice (ICJ) into concrete political action that will fight the influence of the fossil-fuel industry and protect the globe from environmental catastrophe.<\/p>\n
In an effort spearheaded by the tiny Pacific island nation, the ICJ issued a rare unanimous advisory opinion in July,<\/a> which clarified that all states are required under international law to protect the climate, prevent further harms and have a duty to cooperate.<\/p>\n That legal duty to tackle the climate crisis extends far beyond the 2015 Paris agreement, which Donald Trump withdrew the US from on his first day back in office, and any breach of this duty leaves states open to claims of reparations including compensation, the court found.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are on the frontline in the Pacific, but no country, not even the US, is insulated from climate change, and we\u2019re doing this on behalf of everybody,\u201d said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu\u2019s minister of climate change.<\/p>\n \u201cOur main effort now is building an architecture outside of Cop [UN climate talks], using tools like the ICJ advisory opinion, to try and influence the process from outside and force states to comply with their obligations under international law.\u201d<\/p>\n Regenvanu added: \u201cEvery year we leave the Cop depressed, but [we] will begrudgingly continue to participate because if we\u2019re not at the table we\u2019ll be on the menu. But I don\u2019t think it is reformable.\u201d<\/p>\n Regenvanu\u2019s comments came after Trump used his speech at the UN general assembly to call the climate crisis a \u201ccon job\u201d and make thinly veiled threats against countries backing renewable energy projects, which he is dismantling in the US while boosting fossil-fuel production.<\/p>\n The production and use of fossil fuels are driving the climate crisis, which is turbocharging deadly extreme weather including heatwaves, hurricanes, drought and wildfires across the US \u2013 none of which were mentioned in Trump\u2019s climate denialist rant at the UN.<\/p>\n In stark contrast, Vanuatu, an archipelago located east of northern Australia whose 330,000 inhabitants, culture, food sources and land are facing existential threats from the climate crisis, has a long history of leadership in climate diplomacy.<\/p>\n Vanuatu began calls for a loss-and-damage fund in 1992 \u2013 which was finally established at the 2023 Cop in Dubai<\/a> \u2013 and was among the first countries to call for the recognition of ecocide as a fifth crime against humanity under the Rome statute. It was also among the first backers of the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty and then led the charge on the ICJ case after a group of law students lobbied the government in 2019.<\/p>\n The ICJ judges found that 1.5C is a legally binding non-negotiable limit and all states are obliged to implement evidence-based measures to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to curtail global heating and protect the climate system.<\/p>\n Fossil fuels are causing widespread harm to human health, ecosystems, the oceans and the climate, and government support for the production and consumption of oil, gas and coal through subsidies and licenses may \u201cconstitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that state\u201d, the advisory opinion found.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fossil-fuel industry has captured everything, from politics, to the media, and general discourse. It is the power of the fossil-fuel industry that is the central power in the current world dynamic\u201d and the biggest obstacle to tackling the climate crisis and implementation of the ICJ ruling, according to Regenvanu.<\/p>\n The fossil-fuel industry spent at least $445m in the last US election<\/a> cycle to influence US politicians, especially Trump and Republicans. Since winning re-election and taking control of both Houses, Trump has slashed environmental regulations while his signature legislative package gives oil and gas firms $18bn <\/a>in tax incentives.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s actions are not limited to domestic policy.<\/p>\n In recent months, the US, the largest historical greenhouse-gas emitter, has rescinded climate finance commitments that it owes, according to international law, to countries harmed by its dependence on fossil fuels. Trump has also withdrawn from key international forums including the UN climate talks and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), threatening to retaliate against international efforts to decarbonize shipping and transition to renewable energy sources.<\/p>\n Amid unprecedented hostility from the US and widespread geopolitical tensions, Vanuatu is now working on a resolution to the UN that will likely be tabled after Cop30 in Belen, Brazil.<\/p>\n The resolution is unlikely to be passed unanimously like the March 2023 Vanuatu resolution which led to the ICJ case, but is expected to gain the support of a large majority of countries and would be an important step in the ICJ findings becoming workable obligations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not getting anywhere with consensus-based decision-making because a few states can hold everyone else to ransom and stop new environmental safeguarding conventions like the plastic treaty, the universal levy on shipping and at Cop. The only place that\u2019s kind of safe from that is the UN general assembly, where it\u2019s a majority vote,\u201d Regenvanu told the Guardian.<\/p>\n \u201cIn certain forums it\u2019s better the US isn\u2019t there. We have less obstruction and less resistance in the room, so we can get more done \u2026 But look, every month there is another disaster in the US, people are already dying here. Eventually the day of reckoning will come for the US, and sooner or later something has to change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vanuatu is working on securing a UN vote to turn a landmark ruling on the climate crisis by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-46256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}