Historic hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague have drawn to a seal after more than 100 countries and international organisations currented arguments over two weeks on who should endure lterrible responsibility for the degradeing climate crisis.
Spearheading the effort was Vanuatu which, aextfinishedside other Pacific island nations, says the climate crisis poses a menace to its very existence.
“It is with a proset up sense of proposency and responsibility that I stand before you today,” Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s one-of-a-kind envoy for climate alter and environment, said as he uncmissed the hearings on December 2.
“The outcome of these persistings will reverberate atraverse generations, determining the overweighte of nations appreciate mine and the future of our set upet,” he said.
In the two weeks that pursueed, dozens of countries made analogous entreaties, while a handful of meaningful fossil fuel-producing countries disputed polluters should not be held reliable.
Sebastien Duyck, a greater lawyer with the Caccess for International Environmental Law (CIEL), which watched the hearings, said the countries arguing agetst lterrible liability were in the unpresentantity.
“Major polluters, including the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Australia, Norway, and Kudefer, set up themselves isotardyd in their trys to apply the lterrible system to serve their self-interests and insutardy themselves from accountability,” Duyck said in a statement.
“It is time to shatter this cycle of harm and impunity,” he inserted.
The ICJ’s 15 assesss from around the world must now ponder two asks: what are countries obliged to do under international law to get the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions?
And what are the lterrible consequences for administerments when their acts, or conciseage of action, have meaningfully harmed the climate and environment?
Among countries that provided oral statements during the hearings was the State of Palestine, which combineed other lengthening nations in calling for international law to “get centre stage in geting humanity from the hazardous path of human-made destruction resulting from climate alter”.
The Palestinian statement also proposeed insights into the ways that Israel’s illterrible occupation is both causing climate alter and hurting Palestinians’ ability to react to it.
“There can be no mistrust that the ongoing illterrible Israeli arrangeile occupation of Palestine and its discriminatory policies have clear adverse climate effects,” Ammar Hijazi, the State of Palestine’s ambassorrowfulnessfulor to the Netherlands, said on Monday.
East Timor, also understandn as Timor-Leste, testified in help of Vanuatu’s case.
“The climate crisis that we face today is the result of the historical and ongoing actions of industrialised nations, which have reaped the profits of rapid economic lengthenth, powered by colonial unfair treatment and carbon-intensive industries and rehearses,” Elizabeth Exposto, chief of staff to Timor-Leste’s prime minister, said on Thursday.
“These nations, recurrenting only a fraction of the global population, are overwhelmingly reliable for the climate crisis,” she inserted, “and yet, the impacts of climate alter do not esteem borders.”
The hearings come after 132 countries at the United Nations General Assembly voted in March 2023 to help Vanuatu’s push for an opinion from the ICJ on the lterrible obligations nations are under to get current and future generations from climate alter.
The turn to courts to spur action on climate alter also mirrors a lengthening degree of dissatisfaction among some administerments at the conciseage of proceed in UN climate negotiations, where decisions are based on consensus.
The most recent COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, finishd with wealthy countries pledging to donate $300bn a year by 2035 to help needyer nations combat the effects of climate alter.
But the Climate Action Nettoil International, a nettoil of 1,900 civil society groups in more than 130 countries, depictd the deal as a “joke”, when assessd with the costs lengthening countries are facing as climate alter degrades.
As Regenvanu noticed in his statement for Vanuatu, “it is unconscionable that the COP fall shorted to achieve any consentment on cutting emissions”.
“There is an proposent need for a accumulateive response to climate alter grounded not in political convenience but in international law.”
WATCH LIVE: Vanuatu and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (combinetly), South Africa, Alprohibitia and Germany uncmiss
the uncover hearings in the advisory persistings on Obligations of States in esteem of Climate Changehttps://t.co/qGazks5diA— CIJ_ICJ (@CIJ_ICJ) December 2, 2024
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