The UN General Assembly on Wednesday will weigh a draft resolution underlining states’ obligations to combat climate change, a long-awaited move that has been scaled back under pressure from major greenhouse gas emitters.
In 2024, the small Pacific island nation of Vanuatu spearheaded the General Assembly’s request for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the responsibility of states to fulfill their climate commitments.
The world’s top court last year ruled that states were obliged to tackle climate change under international law, and failing to do so would pave the way for “reparations” to vulnerable countries.
The decision exceeded climate advocates’ expectations, and Vanuatu in January proposed a new draft resolution to implement the ICJ ruling, which is non-binding but can be drawn on by courts around the world.
“For Vanuatu and for many climate-vulnerable states, this is ultimately about survival, but it is also about something wider: whether multilateralism can still respond to reality with unity,” said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s climate minister and a proponent of the cause for several years.
But the text was altered significantly after negotiations among states, with climate change taking a back seat to national security or industrial interests in many countries.
The resolution welcomes the ICJ opinion “as an authoritative contribution to the clarification of existing international law” and calls on states to “comply with their respective obligations” to protect the global climate.
It also emphasizes the measures needed to keep global warming limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, particularly “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems” in keeping with a goal adopted by nearly 200 countries during a global climate meeting in Dubai in 2023.
However, the creation of an “International Register of Damage” to compile evidence of “damage, loss or injury attributable to climate change” has vanished from the current text, an initial draft of which was viewed by AFP.
‘Perseverance’
The register idea sparked backlash from the United States, China, the European Union, Japan and multiple oil-producing nations that argued it went beyond the ICJ opinion, diplomatic sources told AFP.
The countries most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions also regularly oppose any mechanism that could require them to pay reparations to nations at greatest risk of devastating impacts from climate change.
Vanuatu insists that the resolution avoids this.
“Let me also be clear about what the resolution does not do. It does not create new legal obligations. It does not adjudicate disputes. It does not attribute responsibility to any state,” Regenvanu said, describing the text as “a careful and balanced response to the Court’s guidance.”
Despite the watered-down draft, the resolution is unlikely to be adopted by the consensus seen in 2024, according to diplomatic sources, who expect at least one state to call for a vote on the matter.
Joie Chowdhury, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, said the current version of the resolution was “still a strong text, and it really matters that it passes.”
“This text represents perseverance in the pursuit of climate justice, even in the face of enormous political pressure,” she told AFP.
Climate advocates hope that the concept of a damage registry can be brought to the table in the future via the UN secretary-general, as the draft resolution calls on the UN chief to submit a report the General Assembly “containing ways to advance compliance with all obligations” from the ICJ ruling.
