Vanuatu and other “climate vulnerable” island nations claim they are threatened by rising seas and worsening typhoons caused by fossil fuel use. In response to an emotional petition from them and law students at the University of the South Pacific, the United Nations General Assembly presented a resolution to the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ or World Court), asking two questions:
- What obligations do countries have under the Kyoto and Paris Climate Agreements or other international laws to protect Earth’s climate from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions?
- What legal consequences do (developed) countries face if they fail to abide by those laws and thus cause serious harm to the climate system and vulnerable communities?
- The ICJ held hearings in December 2024 and (unsurprisingly) in July 2025 ruled formally, or declared in open court, that:
- Greenhouse gas GHG) emissions are “unequivocally caused by human activities,” and are not confined by territorial boundaries” but are distributed throughout the atmosphere, thereby affecting Earth’s entire climate system.
- The “climate crisis” is likewise “unequivocally” serious and caused by human activities. Indeed, manmade climate change is an “existential problem of planetary proportions,” a “universal risk” to all nations, a dire threat to “all forms of life and the very health of our planet.”
- “A clean, healthy and sustainable environment” is a “human right.”
- Member states (excluding China, India and other “emerging economies”) have a “duty” to prevent climate change, and failure of a state to “take appropriate action to protect the climate system … may constitute an internationally wrongful act.”
The Court’s pronouncements of legal and scientific expertise demonstrate yet again that the ICJ offers little more than politicized caricatures of law and justice – this time as a krazy kangaroo klimate kourt.
Americans should be grateful that the ICJ ruling is nonbinding; advisory only, and the United States officially withdrew from the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction over UN member nations in 1986.
Climate cultists will nevertheless demand obeisance to ICJ findings and dictates by the USA and other nations, and the ICJ decision and language will undoubtedly be cited in legal actions before their courts.
The lawsuits will almost certainly include demands for billions or trillions of dollars in climate change “prevention” funds, “reparations” for past and ongoing damages, and money for “adaptation measures” that “victimized” countries will have to take to minimize horrific damage from climate changes caused by developed nations. They will also likely demand an end to fossil fuels and petrochemicals, despite our needing them to power vehicles, generators, furnaces and factories, and manufacture 6,000 petrochemical products, including solar panel, wind turbine, transformer, battery and electric vehicle components.
The ICJ rulings raise endless issues and underscore the court’s propensity for vapid, ignorant analysis.
Greenhouse gases (GHGs) certainly arise from human activities and become part of the global atmosphere. However, they are also the product of natural processes, like forest fires and vegetative and animal decay. The most important GHG is water vapor (~1-4% of the atmosphere), though climate activists never mention it. Other GHGs are minuscule components and play minor roles in climate and weather: eg, carbon dioxide (0.04%) and methane 0.0002%).
The only places climate change is a “crisis,” an “existential problem of planetary proportions,” or a “dire threat” to people and planet are in climate cult computer models, fearmongering and press releases.
Actual historic records, empirical data and ongoing measurements show no planet-wide or even national increases in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, sea level rise, forest fires or other catastrophes. They do show crops, grasslands and forests growing better, faster and with less water, as atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperatures increased.
A true dire threat to humanity and nature would be another ice age. The Pleistocene Era’s mile-high glaciers bulldozed and buried everything for thousands of miles south of the Arctic, dropped sea levels by hundreds of feet, and replaced countless plant and animal species with new cold-weather varieties. The Little Ice Age (~1300-1850) brought floods, storms, famines and disease to Europe and Asia.
How could Vanuatu have survived the 400-foot rise in sea levels since the last Ice Age, including a foot since 1900, but now is threatened by 1-2 feet more over the next century or two?
The blunt reality is that the World Court cannot decree that a “climate crisis” is being “unequivocally” caused by fossil fuels and other human activities – any more than Spanish Inquisitors could decree that the sun revolves around our planet. Science doesn’t work that way.
Under the scientific method, a theory like catastrophic manmade climate change (nee global warming) must be supported by empirical evidence (not hype or models) – or it must be rejected. Not only is there no “settled” climate science. What we now know demonstrates that we face no crisis, and the supposed “green” energy cure for this non-crisis would be far more devastating to humanity, wildlife and planet than any climate calamities alleged to be threatening us.
But the UN and Climate Industrial Complex cling so desperately to manmade climate cataclysm claims (and the money and power those claims generate) that they want to criminalize climate “misinformation, disinformation, misrepresentation, denialism and greenwashing” – which the UN, ICJ and nation states would define, prosecute and penalize.
Any lawsuit claiming a “human right.” to a “clean, healthy, sustainable environment” falsely assumes that developed nations can actually control Earth’s climate and fulfill their “duty” to prevent both natural and human-caused climate change, for whatever climate exists wherever the litigants live.
It must ignore harms from eliminating fossil fuels, reliable coal- or gas-based electricity and 6,000+ products made from petrochemicals. It must dismiss the fact that those life-enhancing products and other modern technologies were created and manufactured by the very countries they now vilify and blame.
The lawsuits must also assume that “clean” wind, solar and battery technologies will magically arrive once the coal-oil-gas era ends – and will not involve mining and processing, toxic pollution, child and slave labor, and ecological destruction from blanketing vast areas with wind, solar and transmission installations. They must ignore the disease and death from the blackouts and reduced living standards and medical services that inevitably come with that unreliable energy.
This “human right” proclamation also presumes that people will have no desire – and no human right – to act and live outside the dictates of UN, ICJ or other ruling elites regarding: what foods they may eat; what homes they may live in, and how warm or cool they may keep them; where, how, how far and how often they may drive or fly; and what they are permitted to read, think and say about any of this, without running afoul of Disinformation Police.
This International Court of Justice is the height of arrogance, tyranny and injustice to the vast majority of the world’s people. The court and this opinion should simply be ignored and rejected.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, economic development and human rights.