World Court hearing says climate change is ‘urgent and existential threat’ | Climate Crisis News
BREAKINGBREAKING,
ICJ judge Yuji Iwasawa says greenhouse emissions are “unequivocally caused by human activities” as he delivers landmark opinion.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the top World Court, has begun delivering a historic advisory opinion on climate change which it has called an “urgent and existential threat”.
Reading the opinion at the Peace Palace in The Hague, ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa said on Wednesday that greenhouse gas emissions are “unequivocally caused by human activities” and have cross-border effects.
“The consequences of climate change are severe and far-reaching: They affect both natural ecosystems and human populations. These consequences underscore the urgent and existential threat posed by climate change,” said Iwasawa.
The reading of the opinion is ongoing, and the court is yet to announce its conclusions.
After years of lobbying by vulnerable island nations who fear they could disappear under rising sea waters, the United Nations General Assembly asked the ICJ in 2023 for an advisory opinion, a non-binding but important basis for international obligations.
Although it is non-binding, the landmark opinion of the 15 judges of the ICJ – the court’s first-ever on climate change – will carry legal and political weight and is likely to determine the course of future climate action across the world, including whether polluters should be made to pay for their actions.
Judges waded through tens of thousands of pages of written submissions and heard two weeks of oral arguments during the ICJ’s biggest-ever case, as they sought to pull together different strands of environmental law into a definitive international standard.
Vanuatu is one of a group of small states that are pressing for international legal intervention in the climate crisis, which affects many more island nations in the South Pacific.
They have called for stronger measures, in some cases legally binding, to curb emissions and for the biggest emitters of climate-warming greenhouse gases to provide financial aid.
Before the ruling, supporters of climate action gathered outside the court, chanting: “What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!”
More to come…