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environment
'New Era of Climate Accountability': ICJ Says Nations Have Legal Duty to Combat Planetary Crisis
"For the first time, it feels like justice is not just a dream but a direction," said Flora Vano, an activist from Vanuatu.
Jul 23, 2025
The world's highest court said in a landmark advisory opinion handed down Wednesday that countries have a legal obligation to take cooperative action against the climate crisis, which the United Nations body characterized as an "urgent and existential threat."
Reading the ruling aloud during a closely watched hearing, International Court of Justice (ICJ) President Yuji Iwasawa said that "climate change is a common concern" and "cooperation is not a matter of choice for states but a pressing need and a legal obligation."
"Non-compliance with emission-reduction commitments by a state may constitute an internationally wrongful act," the advisory opinion states, opening the door to reparations for countries harmed by the fossil fuel-driven crisis.
The ICJ ruling, which is expected to bolster new and existing climate lawsuits worldwide, stemmed from a 2023 U.N. General Assembly resolution introduced by the low-lying nation of Vanuatu, which—along with more than 130 other governments—demanded that the world's highest court issue an opinion on nations' legal obligations to combat the climate emergency.
"Tonight I'll sleep easier," Flora Vano, country manager of ActionAid Vanuatu, said in a statement following Wednesday's decision. "For the first time, it feels like justice is not just a dream but a direction. The ICJ has recognized what we have lived through—our suffering, our resilience, and our right to our future. This is a victory not just for us but for every frontline community fighting to be heard. Now, the world must act."
"As the Trump administration takes extreme steps to prioritize corporate polluters over public health and the environment, the legal recklessness of doing so has been laid bare."
Danilo Garrido, legal counsel at Greenpeace International, hailed the advisory opinion as "the start of a new era of climate accountability at a global level."
"The ICJ advisory opinion marks a turning point for climate justice, as it has clarified, once and for all, the international climate obligations of states, and most importantly, the consequences for breaches of these obligations," said Garrido. "This will open the door for new cases, and hopefully bring justice to those who, despite having contributed the least to climate change, are already suffering its most severe consequences."
"The message of the court is clear: The production, consumption, and granting of licenses and subsidies for fossil fuels could be breaches of international law," Garrido added. "Polluters must stop emitting and must pay for the harms they have caused."
The ICJ opinion comes as the Trump administration in the U.S.—historically the world's largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases—works to expand fossil fuel drilling, withdraws from cooperative global efforts to fight the climate crisis, and rolls back green energy investments.
The U.S. faced backlash over its position on the case before the ICJ, which was argued last December—when the Biden administration was in power. The Biden administration's representative was accused of arguing that "countries do not have clear legal obligations to reduce carbon pollution."
Delta Merner, a lead scientist with the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that Wednesday's opinion from the ICJ "leaves no room for ambiguity—governments cannot ignore their legal responsibilities to prevent further climate harm."
"This ruling makes clear that obligations under existing international law are not voluntary or symbolic; they are enforceable duties rooted in science, human rights, and intergenerational equity," said Merner. "The court also affirmed that countries must rein in corporate polluters, and if they fail, they’re responsible for helping to fix the damage."
"As the Trump administration takes extreme steps to prioritize corporate polluters over public health and the environment, the legal recklessness of doing so has been laid bare by the new advisory opinion," Merner continued. "This decision heralds a new frontier in the movement for climate accountability."
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'Deep Deception': Report Details How Deep-Sea Mining Industry Exploits National Security Fears
"Mining the deep ocean in defiance of international consensus," said one retired defense official, "would erode U.S. credibility, fracture alliances, and set a dangerous precedent for unilateral resource exploitation."
Jul 22, 2025
As officials meet in Jamaica for a summit on the international seabed this week, a new report by the climate action group Greenpeace details how the deep-sea mining industry—failing to make a convincing case that its exploitation of the deep sea is necessary for a green energy transition—is trying a new strategy: lobbying Congress with the intent of classifying mining on the ocean floor as a national security priority.
In the Monday report, titled Deep Deception: How the Deep Sea Mining Industry is Manipulating Geopolitics to Profit from Ocean Destruction, Greenpeace describes how firms like the Metals Company (TMC), a Canada-based mining company, have spent years trying to convince policymakers around the world that mining in the deep ocean for minerals like copper, nickel, manganese, and cobalt is essential to manufacture electric vehicle batteries for a green transition.
But much of the key data underpinning that argument was produced by mining companies themselves or published by academic journals with financial interests in the industry, and support for the sector from electric carmakers has waned in recent years as the industry has failed to prove it can mine the ocean floor "in a way that ensures the effective protection of the marine environment," as one statement calling for a moratorium read.
Confronted with growing opposition to the notion that deep-sea mining—in which companies use equipment to comb the habitat of tens of thousands of species and potentially spread mining waste for miles—can serve as a key climate solution, Greenpeace said, "these fickle deep-sea entrepreneurs are jumping ship."
Now "they are eager to embrace politically opportunistic 'national security' storylines," reads the report.
"For TMC, the green transition was always a false narrative," said Arlo Hemphill, project lead for the Stop Deep-Sea Mining campaign at Greenpeace USA. "The numbers just didn't add up to justify opening the world's last unspoiled wilderness to mass-scale extractive exploitation. Now, the industry is repackaging itself as essential to national security and defense, exploiting real geopolitical tensions for personal profit. It's a dangerous and unnecessary strategy that could destroy the international seabed to enrich a few."
The report was released as the International Seabed Authority (ISA) convened in Kingston, Jamaica for its 30th Assembly, with governments under heavy pressure from the deep-sea mining industry to fast-track a Mining Code under which they could move forward with ramping up operations—even as 37 states and nearly 1,000 international scientists now support a moratorium on deep-sea mining.
As the ISA began its meeting on Monday, Pew Environment explained the risks carried by deep-sea mining—from noise and light pollution to the endangerment of species scientists haven't yet discovered.
"The deep sea is one of Earth's most pristine and fragile ecosystems," said Grace Evans, senior associate of ocean governance at Pew Charitable Trusts. "Once we damage it, we can't go back."
TMC began "targeting defense and industrial policy stakeholders" in 2022 as it was still pushing its green energy transition narrative.
The company spent nearly half a million dollars over two years to hire lobbying firms to influence votes on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2023 and 2024—and succeeded in pushing the Department of Defense (DOD) to deliver a report "assessing the processing of seabed resources of polymetallic nodules domestically."
TMC's lobbying push also convinced 31 Republican members of Congress to write to then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2023, asking him "to develop a plan to address the national security ramifications of [China's] interest and investment in seabed mining."
In March, TMC announced it would seek permits from the U.S. to mine the international deep sea under American authorization—a move that "brazenly" bypassed international treaties and consensus, said Greenpeace.
Greenpeace's report comes four months after that application and three months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order signaling the government's intent to "rapidly" develop and invest in U.S. capabilities to explore and collect seabed mineral resources through "streamlined permitting," with the White House asserting the U.S. "has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources."
"We will not stand by while a neocolonial deep-sea land grab takes place that will harm our communities, disrupt our cultural connection to the ocean, and endanger our livelihoods."
Under the order, the Trump administration signaled its "readiness to unilaterally authorize deep sea mining in both U.S. and international waters," reads the Greenpeace report—potentially violating the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the U.S. has not signed.
Days after the order was signed, TMC applied to the U.S. government for deep-sea mining exploration licenses and commercial mining permits. The Greenpeace report details how the Trump administration and companies including TMC are working together to once again promote a false narrative about the necessity of deep-sea mining—one that is actually meant to provide "a lifeline for an industry in crisis."
Global defense industries "likely represent only a tiny fraction of overall global consumption" of the metals found in polymetallic nodules in the deep sea, according to the report—meaning that as with the electric auto industry, the defense sector's true demand for deep-sea mining is much smaller than the industry and the Trump administration would have the public believe.
"The U.S. defense demand stands for a tiny percentage of our domestic consumption of critical metals. And to be honest, U.S. defense is not a big user of anything," Jack Lifton, executive director of the Critical Minerals Institute, told Greenpeace. "Given what the defense industry and the DOD and the different contractors are doing in terms of securing metals from elsewhere, friendshoring, reshoring, recycling, there is no need to mine the seabed for cobalt or nickel or rare earths."
While metals that can be accessed through deep-sea mining do have military uses, "the scale of this military use is relatively modest compared to global civilian demand—dwarfed by the commercial manufacturing sector," reads the report.
For example, the U.S. currently imports manganese ore from Gabon, South Africa, and Mexico, and "a substantial deep sea mining development could nearly double the global supply of manganese in its first year, resulting in an immediate oversupply" and a reduction in the value of the metal and the global mining operation. The U.S. also already has a stockpile of 322,000 tons of manganese in Arizona.
In a foreword to the Greenpeace report, retired U.S. Army Major General Randy Manner wrote that "the bedrock of national security" lies in "global stability, the rule of law, and ecological resilience"—not in accumulating new minerals and weaponry.
"Mining the deep ocean in defiance of international consensus would degrade all three. It would erode U.S. credibility, fracture alliances, and set a dangerous precedent for unilateral resource exploitation," said Manner.
In the Pacific region—where deep-sea mining companies aim to operate—several states and leaders have called for a ban. moratorium, or precautionary pause on the practice, with Pacific Island Heritage Coalition Chair Solomon P. Kaho'ohalahala warning that "the Pacific is not a sacrifice zone."
"We will not stand by while a neocolonial deep-sea land grab takes place that will harm our communities, disrupt our cultural connection to the ocean, and endanger our livelihoods," said Kaho'ohalahala. "This July, ISA member states must make it clear where they stand—for their foundational principles of equity, multilateralism, and environmental protection or unbounded corporate greed."
At the ISA meeting in Kingston, Greenpeace International campaigner Louisa Casson said governments around the world "have sent a clear signal that the deep-sea mining industry will not get international approval any time soon"—even amid industry pressure and the Trump administration's push.
TMC's application to the U.S. "shatters" the firm's credibility "and serves as a stark warning to others considering this reckless path."
"Governments have also reaffirmed that there should be no deep sea mining in the global oceans while major political and scientific questions remain unresolved," said Casson. "Deep sea mining is a dangerous gamble we cannot afford, and the only responsible way forward is a global moratorium."
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Trump EPA's Gutting of Research Arm Called the 'Ultimate Friday Night Purge'
"You can't put a number on the lives that it has saved. Now Trump and Zeldin are killing it," said one physician.
Jul 19, 2025
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision Friday to eliminate its scientific research arm drew horrified responses from public health experts and climate advocates, who warned that the Trump administration is targeting the foundation of the department's work to shield Americans from hazardous chemicals, toxic pollution, and drinking water contaminants.
"This is grim news," said Adam Gaffney, an ICU doctor at the Cambridge Health Alliance. "For decades, the EPA's Office of Research and Development has produced the science that underlies the regulations and technologies that protect us from innumerable hazards."
"You can't put a number on the lives that it has saved. Now Trump and Zeldin are killing it," Gaffney added, referring to the president's handpicked EPA administrator.
Since taking charge at the EPA, Lee Zeldin has moved aggressively to implement President Donald Trump's executive orders aimed at gutting the agency's staff and freeing oil and gas corporations from regulatory restraints.
The agency will soon have 12,448 employees, after starting the year with more than 16,000. Staffers at the targeted research office—which had more than 800 employees as of earlier this week—reportedly learned of what one public health expert called "the ultimate Friday night purge" through the EPA's public press release.
In the statement, Zeldin said the elimination of the Office of Research and Development would help "ensure the agency is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment."
But scientists said the closure of the research office would have the opposite impact, leaving the agency's ability to protect the environment and public health badly compromised.
Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that "it is absolutely devastating that Trump officials would shut down this office in its entirety."
"Science, data, and research underpin all of EPA's work, from protections from harmful chemicals to air quality standards to safe drinking water. It's hard to see how EPA can fulfill its mission without its scientific research arm," said Goldman. "The nation enjoys a cleaner environment thanks to the decades of high-quality research coming out of this office. Our nation cannot let this stand. Members of Congress must act."
In his public messaging, Zeldin has deemphasized the EPA's fundamental responsibility to protect the environment, instead casting the agency as a promoter of "energy dominance"—the slogan Trump administration officials have used to describe the president's commitment to boosting fossil fuel drilling.
Earlier this year, Zeldin boasted about launching "the biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history," targeting power plant rules, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and other regulations.
"Out in the open, Zeldin's EPA has been dismantling protections against precisely the sorts of dangers that right-wingers warn are coming from alleged deep-state conspiracies: toxic, cancer-causing chemicals that corporations have lobbied to freely inject into our air, water, food, and bodies," The New Republic's Kate Aronoff wrote in a recent column.
"Among the broader suite of regulations Zeldin's EPA has promised to roll back," Aronoff wrote, "is one that would require coal-fired power plant operators to upgrade wastewater treatment facilities, limiting their ability to freely discharge toxins like mercury, arsenic, selenium, lead, and bromide and to threaten local drinking water supplies."
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