International Court of Justice Needs Global Support To Protect The Climate – CleanTechnica

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All of us want to protect the climate. Why wouldn’t we? It’s the mechanism by which human life flourishes.

The impacts of climate pollution, though, are affecting us all. The consequences include warming temperatures, changes in precipitation, increases in the frequency or intensity of some extreme weather events, and rising sea levels. These reverberations threaten our health by affecting the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the weather we experience.

Basic rights to life, health, food, shelter, and safety are no longer guaranteed. If you want to think of the realistic effects of climate change, then consider this: climate change is projected to cause the deaths of 1 billion people by the end of this century if average warming reaches or exceeds 2°C. Governments around the world should be regulating emissions and pollution, yet many fail to do so.

International law is ground in the legally binding Paris climate agreement, where nations pledged to keep average temperatures within 1.5 °C of pre-industrial levels. Yet the Paris agreement lacks an enforcement mechanism, so shouldn’t courts ensure that national and international governmental bodies be held accountable for their climate promises?

In fact, cases have been piling up as activists head to the courts to protect the climate. They’ve asked for decisions about corporate greenwashing, protection from climate change as a human right, even compensation from corporations for climate-related harms under the “polluter pays” principle.

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Over the past few years there have been more and more efforts to address climate change through the courts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recognized human rights-based climate litigation as an important approach to driving more ambitious climate action and has acknowledged that, if successful, climate litigation “can lead to an increase in a country’s overall ambition to tackle climate change.”

Yet climate litigation is no easy task. The cases are often buried in a quagmire of hearings and motions, in counter-litigation and challenges to climate laws.

As a recent article in Nature outlined, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is the United Nations’ principal judicial organ in The Hague, the Netherlands, will begin hearing evidence on two broad questions.

1. What are countries’ obligations in international law to protect the climate system from anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions?
2. What should the legal consequences be for states when their actions — or failure to act — cause harm?

For example, the Lancet, a journal which illuminates medical science, argues that the path to mitigating climate impacts requires a concerted effort that transcends national borders, emphasizing global solidarity, both shared and national responsibility, and an unwavering commitment to justice and equity. They say that incorporating human rights into climate action emphasizes the imperative to protect the most vulnerable populations, ensuring their right to health, safety, and a sustainable environment.

Will governments speak to the ICJ, not just in their own national interests, but as advocates for a living planet where people and nature can thrive in harmony, now and into the future? That’s the question that Adil Najam, president of the WWF, posed earlier this month in an editorial. Najam calls on scientists and citizens around the world to back the ICJ, saying that this international court’s opinion “will amplify the voices of millions of scientists and citizens who are demanding strong ambition and action on climate and nature protection.”

Should courts even be getting involved in what could be called political processes, as many pundits pose? Shouldn’t governments that lack enforcement mechanisms legislate to compensate for such gaps? Considering the high risks that adverse effects of climate change are causing, it makes sense for governments to move forward with the most efficacious routes for climate solutions. A mitigating factor presents itself, however, and revolves around a social dilemma — yes, all individuals would benefit most from cooperating in regional court decisions that protect the climate, but many representatives defect due to conflicting interests that dissuade them from joint action.

So, as described in a 2023 article in the Cambridge University Press, the dramatic increase in climate litigation over the past decade is “a manifestation of climate action democratization” and a response to weak governmental and corporate climate mitigation. International law on climate change provides “fertile ground for judicial development” because, although the Paris agreement is formally binding, states’ obligations “are sparse and open-textured.”

Courts can be change agents and pressure legislative entities to take decisive action. As a result, until such a time as more legislative bodies accept responsibility for climate cases, it will be up to the ICJ to adjudicate. The ICJ will be the court of highest standard and will set out responsibility parameters for climate damage and entities’ obligations to protect the climate.

Court Cases That Challenge Governments To Protect The Environment

At least 230 new climate cases were filed in 2023, according to the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. In fact, by the end of last year, 2,666 climate litigation cases had been filed worldwide. Many of these are seeking to hold governments and companies accountable for climate action. The claimants are young and old and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), all of whom want to hold governments and companies accountable for their climate pledges and call for advisory opinions from national, regional, and international courts.

Here are some of the more recent climate court cases.

Sixteen young plaintiffs sued the state of Montana, claiming it failed to provide the protections afforded to them under the law to provide citizens with a “clean and healthful environment.” The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, deciding that the state has harmed the environment and the young plaintiffs by preventing Montana from considering the climate impacts of energy projects.

In May, courts in Germany and the United Kingdom separately found that their government’s policies would fail to meet emissions-reduction targets that are set out in law.

Last September, California launched legal action against five of the world’s largest oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, and Shell — and their subsidiaries, demanding that they pay “for the costs of their impacts to the environment, human health and Californians’ livelihoods, and to help protect the state against the harms that climate change will cause in years to come.”

Brazil’s public prosecutor’s office and the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources are seeking compensation for harms specifically from greenhouse gas emissions caused by illegal deforestation.