Vanuatu's Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu speaking to media after an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on climate change. Photo: AFP / John Thys
Vanuatu's climate minister says the country is drafting a UN resolution to turn a landmark climate ruling from the world's top court from words into "political action".
Climate Home reported Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's minister of climate change, saying the resolution would be tabled later this year.
Regenvanu said the resolution will likely come after COP30 in November, once governments' responses to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling have become clearer.
The court found in July that countries can be held legally responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions].
ICJ president Yuji Iwasawa said climate change was an "urgent and existential threat" that was "unequivocally" caused by human activity with consequences and effects that crossed borders.
The court's opinion was the culmination of six years of advocacy and diplomatic manoeuvring which started with a group of Pacific university students in 2019.
Regenvanu said Vanuatu was putting together a group of supportive countries - which he hoped would cover every region - to push the UN resolution forward.
Speaking on the sidelines of Climate Week NYC in New York, Regenvanu said that this resolution "will be about ensuring the court's findings are not left on paper, but become living obligations".
He said it was important to follow up the ICJ opinion with a further resolution at the UN General Assembly, because countries opposed to it could prevent it moving forward in other forums, such as the UN climate negotiations, which require consensus for decisions.
In an informal consultation with delegations held earlier in September, Saudi Arabia's negotiator said "there is no consensus among parties on the reference to the ICJ opinion".
"It's not a negotiated outcome under this process nor is it the product of intergovernmental deliberation. It would therefore be inappropriate to reflect such opinion within our work," the negotiator said.
Regenvanu said unlike the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UNGA votes by majority, so "there is no veto power to block this resolution going through".
