Global climate action is at stake in the UN top court’s biggest ever decision

The Associated Press ^ | July 23, 2025 | BY MOLLY QUELL

[Oldeconomybuyer]

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The UN’s highest court is handing down a historic opinion on climate change Wednesday, a decision that could set a legal benchmark for action around the globe to the climate crisis.

After years of lobbying by vulnerable island nations who fear they could disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice in 2023 for an advisory opinion, a non-binding but important basis for international obligations.

A panel of 15 judges was tasked with answering two questions. First, what are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? Second, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment?

“The stakes could not be higher. The survival of my people and so many others is on the line,” Arnold Kiel Loughman, attorney general of the island nation of Vanuatu, told the court during a week of hearings in December.

Any decision by The Hague-based court would be non-binding advice and unable to directly force wealthy nations into action to help struggling countries. Yet it would be more than just a powerful symbol, since it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits.

[albie]

Oh no!!!!!!! Run! Live to tell others!!

[rrrod]

Well if they say so... lol

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

“who fear they could disappear under rising sea waters”

Funny, how that doesn’t seem to be affecting the east coast of the USA. I live right by the water for 50 years and it’s absolutely BS the water is rising

[9YearLurker]

If only a bad enough decision could persuade Trump to get us out of the UN altogether. (He did put out an executive order to review such memberships...)

[rlmorel]

But...but...but...it is rising faster in some isolated locale out in the Pacific Ocean!

[Skwor]

Such silliness, everyone already knows exactly how they will make their proclamations from their ivory towers. I say proclamations because the idea that they are ruling judiciously on anything is laughable.

[Bob434]

Oooo, “top court” ya say? You mean like our nation’s “top court” the sc which democrats IGNORE?

[iontheball]

Where do these meddling clowns get their authority or even gain peoples’ attention? They remind me of that no count crackhead, Hunter who for unknown reasons still gets listened to only as a curiosity. People need to ignore these no counts and hopefully they will fade away.

[Openurmind]

Water is not rising, the islands are sinking from all the water weight around them pushing down on the crust under the islands.

[oldtech]

I had always heard that if a land mass seemed to be disappearing because of rising waters, it was really just a case of eroding shoreline. How would you actually measure a rising water level? What to do if it actually WAS rising?

[pas]

GILLIGAN!

[oldtech]

Long ago, I had also read science had concluded that the water accumulation on, under. and above the earth always remained constant.

[brookwood]

“First, what are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas”
That isn’t the question. The question is - what are the UN judges required to pay to the people whose lives they are destroying by denying the world affordable energy.

[DeplorableTrumpSupporter]

Jeez, my dad said his worst investment was when he bought waterfront property in Nevada. The person said it would be prime oceanfront property by 2021... 😀

[GailA]

Icebergs 0 chance.

[brookwood]

My father in law lived on the water in Mamaroneck for 96 years. He saw no change.

[Tell It Right]

What to do if it actually WAS rising?

Do nothing. Let the Modern Warm Period play out. Just like the Medieval Warm Period did (roughly AD 900 - 1300), and the Roman Warm Period before that (roughly 200 BC - AD 300), and the Minoan Warm Period before that (roughly 1500 BC to 1100 BC, or the Era of Judges in the Old Testament). There's evidence from written records of how port cities handled sea levels rising and falling (i.e. the port city Ephesus started at around 11th century BC, but during the Greek Dark Age cooling period they built a canal to tie their port structures to the receding shore line as the cooling waters lowered sea levels and made the shore line go further out).

The prior warm periods lasted 4 to 6 centuries each. The Modern Warm Period has been going on for 1.5 to 2 centuries, depending on whom you ask. So we probably have 2 to 4 centuries left in the Modern Warm Period before it tops off and we experience yet another cooling period. At that point, everyone will wish they were in a warm period, when crop yields are higher, rain patterns are more predictable, and there are less deaths by plague.

[Texas Fossil]

BARF

[Salman]

US out of UN already!