Shaping global climate litigation

By Edson Caldas, Newsletter Editor

Hello,

All eyes are on the International Court of Justice this week. The ICJ began hearings on the legal obligation of countries to fight climate change and the consequences for states contributing to global warming.

Advisory opinions of the World Court are non-binding, but they carry a lot of significance both legally and politically. The court's eventual opinion on climate change could influence litigation worldwide.

Today, we break down what to expect. My colleague Sharon Kimathi will be back running the Sustainable Switch on Thursday. (You can still find me if you subscribe to the Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter.) 

Also on my radar today:

Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change and the environment, and Arnold Kiel Loughman, the country's attorney-general. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

More than 100 countries and international organisations will present arguments to the ICJ during two weeks of proceedings.

Vanuatu, one of the small island states that has spearheaded the effort to get the court to give the so-called advisory opinion, was the first to give its views. It urged the ICJ to recognise the harm caused by climate change in its judgment.

"We find ourselves on the front lines of a crisis we did not create, a crisis that threatens our very existence," Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change and the environment, told the court.

Regenvanu said there was an urgent need for a response to climate change that was rooted in international law rather than politics.

The court will also hear from the world's top two emitters of greenhouse gases, China (today) and the United States (tomorrow). Oil producer group OPEC will give its views too.

Experts say the court's opinion, which is expected to be delivered in 2025, will probably be cited in climate change-driven lawsuits in courts from Europe to Latin America and beyond.

The ICJ hearings began just after countries negotiating a global treaty to curb plastic pollution failed to reach agreement. As we discussed in Friday's edition of this newsletter, the talks in South Korea were moving slowly, and lingering divisions were casting doubts on whether a final agreement would be reached.

In the end, more than 100 nations wanted to cap production, but a handful of oil producers were prepared only to target plastic waste.

The hearings also take place a week after developing nations denounced as insufficient an agreement reached at the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan. Countries will provide $300 billion in annual climate finance by 2035 to help poorer nations cope with climate change.

Regenvanu said it was imperative fossil fuels be phased out and more money provided to poorer nations. "We're not seeing that in the outcome of the COPs," he told Reuters.

"We are hoping (the ICJ) can provide a new avenue to break through the inertia we experience when trying to talk about climate justice," Regenvanu added.

Keep an eye on Reuters.com to see how it goes.

A general view of the dried Cogoti reservoir in Chile in March. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarad

Barbados has completed the world's first 'debt-for-climate' swap aimed at raising money to help the Caribbean island build resilience in its water systems to the damaging effects of climate change.

Getting money flowing to projects from water sanitation to drought-resistant crops is challenging with many projects costly to implement and low in returns, Sustainable Finance Reporter Virginia Furness writes.

Here is a list of countries which have completed debt swaps for nature and climate in recent years.

Products obtained from prickly pears. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

Today's spotlight shines a light on the Opuntia Ficus, better known as the cactus pear. A startup founded by a former telecoms manager sees that plant as a solution for growing threats to agriculture in Italy's arid south.

Andrea Ortenzi and four friends started their company, called Wakonda, in 2021. They are convinced the hardy and versatile cactus pear, otherwise called the prickly pear or, in Italy, the Indian fig, can be a highly profitable solution yielding a raft of products.

Wakonda's business model discards the fruit and focuses instead on the prickly pads, which are pressed to yield a juice used for a highly nutritious, low-calorie energy drink. The dried out pads are then processed to produce a light flour for the food industry or a high-protein animal feed.

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