By AFP - Agence France Presse
'Future of the planet' at stake in ICJ hearings: Vanuatu
Richard CARTER
The future of the planet is at stake during hearings at the United Nations' top court, a Vanuatu representative said on Monday, opening a landmark case that aims to establish a legal framework on how countries should deal with climate change.
More than 100 countries and organizations are expected to appear before the International Court of Justice in the next two weeks, the highest number ever.
“The outcome of these proceedings will reverberate for generations, determining the fate of nations like mine and the future of our planet,” said Vanuatu's climate change representative, Ralph Regenvanu.
“This may well be the most consequential case in human history,” Regenvanu told the bench of 15 judges in the paneled hall of the Peace Palace in The Hague.
Activists expect the ICJ opinion to have far-reaching legal consequences in the fight against climate change, affecting ongoing court cases as well as national and international legislation.
Others fear that the UN-backed request for a non-binding advisory opinion will have limited impact and that the UN's highest court will take months, or even years, to issue the opinion.
A handful of protesters gathered outside the Peace Palace, near a big screen that read “We are watching.”
The protesters hung banners that read: “The biggest problem for the highest court” and “Finance our future, climate finance now.”
“This hearing means everything to the climate justice movement,” Siosiua Veikune, 25, from Tonga, who is part of the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change group, told AFP.
The performances at the scenic Peace Palace take place days after a bitterly negotiated climate deal at the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan.
Rich, polluting countries agreed to find at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help poorer nations make the transition to cleaner energy sources and prepare for growing climate impacts, such as extreme weather.
Developing countries condemned the pledge as too little too late, and the summit's final agreement did not include a global promise to abandon the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels.
- 'Defining moment' - The UN General Assembly
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution last year that referred two important climate questions to the ICJ.
Firstly, it asked: what obligations do states have under international law to protect the Earth's climate system from greenhouse gas emissions?
Secondly, what are the legal consequences of these obligations in cases where states, “by their acts and omissions, have caused significant damage to the climate system and other parts of the environment”?
The second question was also linked to the legal responsibilities that states have for the damage caused by climate change to small and more vulnerable countries and their populations.
This applies especially to countries threatened by rising sea levels and adverse weather patterns in places like the Pacific Ocean.
- Record high emissions -
Joie Chowdhury, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, based in the US and Switzerland, said climate advocates did not expect the ICJ opinion to “provide very specific answers.”
Instead, she predicted that the court would provide “a legal template... on which more specific issues can be decided”.
The judge's opinion, which she expects to take place sometime next year, “will inform climate litigation at the domestic, national, and international level.”
Some of the world's biggest carbon polluters - including the three largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China, the United States, and India - will be among the 98 countries and 12 organizations that will address the court.
The world agreed in Paris in 2015 to try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
However, it has not determined how to achieve this goal and is nowhere near reaching it.
Preliminary scientific data from the Global Carbon Project, published during the COP29 negotiations, showed that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas increased this year to a new record.
“When the Paris Agreement was concluded, the youth of the world saw it as an instrument of hope,” Cynthia Houniuhi, president of Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, told the court.
“Today, the whole process has been hijacked by big emitters and big fossil fuel producers, turning it into a political haven and a trap for everyone else,” she said.
“For the world's young people and future generations, the consequences are existential.”
jhe-ric/js
Commenti