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"What started in the Pacific is now a historic climate justice campaign, as the world's most urgent problem of climate change reaches the worlds highest court," said one campaigner.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard arguments Monday in the largest climate case ever brought before it as a coalition of low-lying and developing nations demanded larger polluting nations be held to account under international law for causing "significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment" with runaway fossil fuel emissions over recent decades.
In the first day of hearings in The Hague that could last weeks, multiple representatives from the Pacific island of Vanuatu, which is leading the coalition of over 100 countries and allied organizations, laid the blame for the climate crisis at the feed of a small number of states that are large emitters of greenhouse gases.
"We know what the cause of climate change is: a conduct of specific States ... Vanuatu's contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is negligible, and yet we are among those most affected by climate change," said Arnold Kiel Loughman, attorney general of the Republic of Vanuatu.
"We find ourselves on the frontlines of a crisis we did not create," said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change and environment, told the court.
Monday's historic moment at The Hague follows years of work on the part of Pacific Island nations, particularly Vanuatu, to push for the ICJ to take up the issue of global warming and human rights. The stakes of the planetary emergency are particularly high for these countries, which are under threat from rising seas and other climate impacts.
Ilan Kiloe, legal counsel for the Melanesian Spearhead Group, a regional subgroup that includes Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, issued a stark warning during his remarks to the court: "Climate change is now depriving our peoples, again, of our ability to enjoy our right to self-determination in our lands. The harsh reality is that many of our people will not survive."
Last year, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the ICJ to issue an advisory opinion on climate change and human rights. The measure, which was introduced by Vanuatu and co-sponsored by more than 130 governments, requested that the world's highest court outline countries' legal responsibilities for combatting fossil fuel-driven climate change and the legal consequences of failing to meet those obligations.
Over the next two weeks, the court will hear statements from nearly 100 nations, including wealthy developed countries such as the United States. Advisory opinions, unlike judgments, are not binding—but Vanuatu and other supporters hope that a forthcoming opinion would accelerate action around the climate emergency.
The country began pushing for the ICJ resolution in 2021, following a campaign launched in 2019 by a group of students from the University of the South Pacific.
"What started in the Pacific is now a historic climate justice campaign, as the world's most urgent problem of climate change reaches the world’s highest court," said Shiva Gounden of Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
"The next two weeks of hearings are the culmination of collective campaigning from 2019, powerful advocacy, and mobilizing the world behind this landmark campaign, to ensure the human rights of current and future generations are protected from climate destruction, and the biggest emitters are held accountable."
Polly Banks, Vanuatu country director for Save the Children, who travelled to The Hague for the proceedings, said that "the hearing before the Court goes to questions about the efficacy, equity and fairness of the current responses to climate change, which are particularly relevant for children, who have contributed the least to climate change but will be most affected by its consequences."
"Currently, only 2.4% of climate finance from multilateral funding sources is child-responsive. Even without the Court's opinion, we know that states need to do far more to protect children from the worst impacts of this crisis, by significantly increasing climate finance to uphold children’s basic rights and access to health, education and protection," Banks added.
The start of hearings at The Hague come on the heels of a COP29 climate summit that was heavily criticized. The summit focused heavily on climate finance, but the resulting deal was panned by critics as rich nations agreed to voluntarily provide just $300 billion to help developing nations decarbonize and deal with the impacts of the climate emergency. Poor nations and climate campaigners had demanded over a trillion dollars in funding in the form of debt-free grants and direct payments.
We need to work together to forge a bold vision to protect displaced people in a climate-disrupted world.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House poses an existential threat to the climate movement’s goal of a livable future. In the face of this magnitude and multitude of threats, it is imperative that we resist the impulse to retreat into our niche issue silos and limit our vision. If we hope to preserve a stable climate, we must prevail in the fight of our lives against authoritarianism. And to do that, climate movement leaders must commit to an unprecedented level of solidarity with the communities targeted by Trump, in particular immigrants and refugees.
For a number of years now, we have taken part in, and led, conversations between immigrant and climate leaders aligning our movements for this moment. To meet it, the U.S. Climate Movement must grapple with the connections between climate disruption, migration, and rising authoritarianism; commit to the fight against mass detention and deportation of migrants; and help build a narrative and vision of climate resilience that includes protections for displaced people.
Trump’s electoral victory comes in the midst of a global wave of authoritarian politics stretching across Western democracies. These movements share a worldview of scarcity in a chaotic, disrupted world, and their politics are defined by brutal scapegoating of migrants and displaced people. Wherever they win power these authoritarians are climate disasters, expanding the fossil fuel economy, and delaying action. The threat of eco-fascism lurks in authoritarian ideology like the great replacement theory and has motivated terrible acts of individual violence. The authoritarian movements gaining political power by demonizing migrants and refugees are firmly aligned with fossil fuel billionaires and their interests. Climate and immigrant rights movements succeed or fail together; our political fortunes are inextricably bound.
Climate advocates can deploy the legal and political tactics that blocked tar sands pipelines and new coal-fired power plants to challenge the construction of the vast network of detention centers, camps, and militarized sites essential for the administration’s agenda.
As climate-disruption accelerates it creates the conditions these authoritarian movements thrive on. More frequent and severe domestic disasters, like back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton, feed the psychological sense of scarcity of disruption. Globally, increasing climate impacts intensify factors like persecution, conflict, and economic desperation, driving internal displacement and forcing some to cross borders to seek safety. Authoritarians like Trump prey on these conditions, falsely blaming asylum seekers for stealing FEMA funds from hurricane survivors in a calculated attempt to pit the victims of the climate crisis against vulnerable immigrants instead of billionaires.
One reason these manipulative tactics have been so effective is that they go unchallenged. On both sides of the Atlantic, climate and other progressive organizations have seen defense of immigrants and refugees as a political third rail, remained silent in the face of growing attacks, and ceded the narrative to the worst political actors. In advance of June’s European elections where parties advancing anti-immigrant ideology made significant gains, advocates were advised to avoid “being distracted” by engaging with anti-immigrant rhetoric and focus on mobilizing voters with a message of climate action. American climate groups took a similar approach in the recent election, with similar results. As climate disasters continue to rise, so will the fear-mongering, finger-pointing, and manipulation. We cannot afford to let it go unchallenged.
With the incoming administration’s imminent threat of mass detention and deportation, the first step for climate organizations must be to actively and materially join the defense of immigrant communities. This means participating in the political resistance to the program, including mass marches and strikes, but also directing chapters and members to join ICE raid rapid-response networks, immigration court accompaniment projects, mutual aid efforts, and the like. These actions will go a long way in building needed trust with immigrant rights leaders, who can be wary of the environmental movement’s checkered past and recent silence on this issue.
Climate and environmental organizations also bring a critical skillset to the table—their experience stopping the construction of fossil fuel infrastructure. Climate advocates can deploy the legal and political tactics that blocked tar sands pipelines and new coal-fired power plants to challenge the construction of the vast network of detention centers, camps, and militarized sites essential for the administration’s agenda. Groups like the Prison Ecology Project and the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons have experimented with using these strategies to challenge the construction of new jails, with some success. If the climate movement applied the same grassroots, legal, and inside political coordination that brought down the Keystone XL pipeline, we could challenge every new building, airstrip, and cage linked to mass deportation. In this fight every delay will be valuable in preventing measures of suffering and cruelty.
Second, climate organizations need to launch a massive program of popular education to help their members and leaders understand the connections between climate and migrant justice and reject authoritarianism. It’s time for a movement-wide reckoning around climate and migration similar to those around racial justice and Indigenous rights that have already transformed the movement’s language, analysis, and agenda. Pre-election polling shows alarming support for the concept of mass deportation and the militarized internment of undocumented people—including among Democrats. Our conversations about climate and migration with a wide swath of environmental leaders and activists showed us that these sentiments are more pervasive in the climate movement than many would like to admit. Luckily research shows support for deportation programs collapses when respondents better understand the details of who is targeted, pointing to an opening for popular education.
Part of this project will need to be confronting the damaging narratives the movement has used, which too often cast increased migration as a threat comparable to storms, fires, and heatwaves. Some research shows that these kinds of stories, often highlighting unreliable numerical predictions of mass climate displacement, actually increase anti-immigrant sentiment, even among highly motivated climate activists. Both of our organizations have worked to shift these narratives in recent years, and see elevating the complex stories of displaced people in our communities as the key.
Lastly, we need to work together to forge a bold vision to protect displaced people in a climate-disrupted world. For too long the climate movement, and the progressive movement writ large, have ceded this issue to those who offer guns, walls, and cages as their solution. In the absence of an alternative, these have become the only solutions in our discourse. Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned on one of the most restrictive border bills in the modern age, while President Joe Biden’s climate negotiators fought the creation of tools for global climate reparations, like the United Nations Loss and Damage Fund.
The authoritarian narrative paints climate disruption as a competition for survival, and tries to pit vulnerable people against each other. But this is a lie, crafted to protect the fossil fuel billionaires. The truth is that the climate crisis can only be solved through cooperation and interdependence. It profoundly illustrates how our fates are bound together, and demands an expansive vision of safety and resilience. The climate and migrant justice movements need to bring a new urgency to calls for global investments to protect vulnerable people’s ability to stay in their community and thrive, and safe and orderly pathways for them to leave if and when necessary, as a counter to the militarized borders currently on offer.
Taking this path will require real commitment, resources, and dedication. But our opponents want us divided because the world we deserve can only be won together.
The recent COP16 underscored the need for inclusive conservation strategies in Latin America, where social conflicts and environmental vulnerabilities intersect. A Universal Basic Income could be the answer.
The recent 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP16, has highlighted the urgent need to rethink conservation strategies, particularly in Latin America, where the convergence of social conflict and environmental vulnerability creates a complex, high-stakes landscape.
The global environmental crisis, manifesting in the accelerated loss of biodiversity, is exacerbated by deep socio-economic inequalities. Yet communities most affected by environmental degradation are often those that can play a crucial role in its protection. Traditional approaches are no longer sufficient; conservation efforts must be both innovative and inclusive. Therefore, it is vital that communities are included in the formulation of policies that impact their lives. And to take an active role in conservation, they require support through financing mechanisms tailored to their specific needs.
The intersection of conservation and social justice is not merely an ideal; it is an urgent necessity that we must embrace to achieve a sustainable future for all.
In this regard, Universal Basic Income (UBI) emerges as an essential tool for empowering vulnerable communities and promoting equitable conservation strategies. It is not merely about mitigating environmental impacts; these actions also strengthen community resilience and contribute to peace, helping to prevent conflicts. However, the true potential of UBI is only fully realized when supported by financing mechanisms such as Cap and Share.
The Cap and Share model generates socio-economic equality through emission reductions and biodiversity protection. And by redirecting these resources towards UBI, we can create a virtuous cycle in which vulnerable communities benefit directly from conservation actions.
Cap and Share enables communities to receive regular, unconditional payments, providing them with crucial financial security. This not only alleviates pressure on natural resources but also facilitates active community participation in the conservation of their surroundings. UBI is not simply economic assistance; it is a model of climate justice that ensures those most affected by climate change receive direct support, empowering them to become agents of change.
In Colombia, where the intersection of urgent environmental challenges and violent conflict is particularly evident, a pilot project implementing UBI could be pivotal. This initiative would provide regular income to affected communities, offering them economic relief and the opportunity to engage in conservation practices. Such a project would not only generate immediate benefits for the communities involved but also serve as a vital case study for scaling UBI initiatives across similar contexts. The evidence gathered from this pilot could demonstrate the effectiveness of UBI in reducing poverty, enhancing food security, and fostering peaceful sustainable practices, thereby making a compelling case for broader implementation.
Global evidence suggests that regular income from UBI can have significant positive effects on food security and community autonomy. Communities receiving cash transfers can diversify their income sources and improve their agricultural practices, thereby reducing pressure on ecosystems. In Colombia, this could mean a reduction in practices that contribute to deforestation, as communities empowered by financial security are more likely to invest in sustainable land management.
Armed conflict in Colombia has left deep scars on the country’s social and environmental fabric. Displaced communities and areas of high ecological degradation serve as constant reminders of the interconnectedness of social and environmental issues. Restoring the environment and reducing inequalities must be tackled together to achieve lasting peace. Implementing UBI, supported by Cap and Share, could be a crucial step toward rebuilding the relationship between communities and nature, creating a foundation for sustainable development.
As we look forward, it is essential that the conversation around inclusive financing does not stall. Every dollar allocated to conservation should be seen as an investment in the communities that care for our most precious ecosystems. Both international and national actors must recognise the importance of these initiatives and collaborate to ensure that vulnerable communities have access to the resources they need.
The implementation of UBI, alongside mechanisms like Cap and Share, not only offers an economic solution but also addresses the root causes of social and environmental injustice. In doing so, we not only protect biodiversity and ecosystems but also build more just and resilient societies, capable of facing present and future challenges. The intersection of conservation and social justice is not merely an ideal; it is an urgent necessity that we must embrace to achieve a sustainable future for all.
Concluding this chapter of COP16, it is clear that the path to effective conservation must be inclusive. Promoting dialogue around financing mechanisms that empower vulnerable communities is essential to ensure that conservation strategies are fair and effective. Only by doing so can we strengthen the resilience of our communities and contribute to a more equitable world, where nature and humanity coexist in harmony. A pilot project in Colombia can provide the necessary evidence to scale these initiatives, offering a replicable model on a larger scale, which can be advocated in upcoming scenarios such as COP29 and COP30.