\n<\/p>\n
Australia could face international legal action over its fossil fuel production and failure to rapidly cut emissions, Vanuatu\u2019s climate minister says, after a potentially watershed declaration by the world\u2019s top court.<\/p>\n
An International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion published in The Hague on Wednesday found countries had a legal obligation to take measures to prevent climate change and aim to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, and that high-emitting countries that failed to act could be liable to pay restitution to low-emitting countries.<\/p>\n
The case was instigated by law students in Vanuatu and referred to the ICJ by a decision of the UN general assembly in 2023 by 130 countries, including Australia. The opinion was hailed as a historic moment by Pacific island representatives, climate campaigners and legal academics. Vanuatu said it planned to push for a UN resolution to support its implementation.<\/p>\n
Australia had joined other significant emitters, including the US and China, in arguing in submissions to the court <\/strong>that countries\u2019 obligations were limited to complying with the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.<\/p>\n The ICJ, represented by a panel of 15 judges, disagreed. It found all countries had binding obligations to act, not just under UN climate agreements, but under international human rights law, the law of the sea and customary international law. It said countries could be found liable if they failed to address fossil fuel production, consumption, subsidies and exploration licences.<\/p>\n Sign up: Clear Air newsletter<\/p>\n Vanuatu\u2019s climate change minister, Ralph Regenvanu, said it would give Pacific island nations \u201cmuch greater leverage\u201d at climate talks and in dealing with partner countries such as Australia. He told the ABC\u2019s Radio National it would take time to fully examine the 500-page opinion, but it suggested litigation was \u201cdefinitely\u201d an option.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to the advisory the ICJ handed down today, Australia is committing internationally wrongful acts as it is sponsoring and subsidising fossil fuel production and excessive emissions,\u201d Regenvanu said.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia is one of the major contributors to fossil fuel production. It\u2019s the third largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world. It\u2019s a major contributor to emissions \u2026 It needs to align itself with the advisory opinion and cease this conduct that is contributing to emissions and start making reparations.\u201d<\/p>\n Dean Bialek, an international lawyer and former lead climate negotiator for island nations, said the opinion was \u201cunusually robust\u201d and would have \u201chugely significant\u201d ramifications for Australia.<\/p>\n Bialek said the court\u2019s confirmation of the primacy of the goal of limiting heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels meant Australia should be setting an emissions reduction target for 2035 in the \u201cmid to high 70s\u201d \u2013 that is, at least 75% below 2005 levels \u2013 when it made that decision later this year.<\/p>\n He said the opinion made it \u201cinescapable\u201d that the Albanese government needed to include a \u201cclimate trigger\u201d as it reformed national environment laws, and was a further demonstration that it needed to \u201cintensify its diplomatic legwork\u201d to host the Cop31 UN climate summit in partnership with the Pacific next year.<\/p>\n Retta Berryman, a senior lawyer at Environmental Justice Australia, agreed the opinion would help measure whether the federal government\u2019s upcoming climate commitments were ambitious enough, and said it was a \u201cclear statement of the evolving legal standards around climate change\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are likely to continue to see significant climate litigation in Australia against governments and companies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Australian National University associate professor Siobhan McDonnell, a lawyer and climate adviser to Vanuatu, said the opinion was \u201chistoric\u201d, stating as it did that \u201call states have international human rights obligations, including the rights to ensure life, health and the rights to a clean and safe environment\u201d.<\/p>\n The Australian Greens leader, Larissa Waters, said the ruling made it clear that \u201cevery one of Labor\u2019s new coal or gas approvals risks Australia being legally liable for the climate consequences\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis should be a turning point. Fossil fuel profits cannot override a climate safe future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Wesley Morgan, a research associate with the Institute for Climate Risk & Response at the University of New South Wales, said Australia had dozens of coal and gas developments up for approval and the government must \u201cheed the message from The Hague\u201d when considering them. \u201cThe days of impunity for the fossil fuel industry are coming to an end,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A federal government spokesperson said Australia was proud to have joined the Pacific in co-sponsoring this Vanuatu-led initiative, and recognised that climate change was \u201cone of the greatest existential threats to all humanity and that it\u2019s having a significant effect on our region\u201d. They noted that the Coalition was debating scrapping its commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, but Labor was committed to working with the Pacific to \u201cstrengthen global climate action\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will continue to turn around their decade of denial and delay on climate by embedding serious climate targets in law and making the changes necessary to achieve them,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cWe will now carefully consider the court\u2019s opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australia could face international legal action over its fossil fuel production and failure to rapidly cut emissions, Vanuatu\u2019s climate minister says, after a potentially watershed declaration by the world\u2019s top court. An International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion published in The Hague on Wednesday found countries had a legal obligation to take measures to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[919,5586,346,186,160,187,584,5237,660,4090,324,571,1168,5584,4742,5585],"class_list":{"0":"post-12032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-action","9":"tag-actions","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-climate","12":"tag-court","13":"tag-crisis","14":"tag-face","15":"tag-fossil","16":"tag-fuel","17":"tag-landmark","18":"tag-legal","19":"tag-ruling","20":"tag-top","21":"tag-warned","22":"tag-worlds","23":"tag-wrongful"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}