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The United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary, Simon Stiell, has urged the Australian government to set an ambitious 2035 emissions reduction target, declaring “bog standard is beneath you”.

In a Monday speech, Stiell says, “don’t settle for what’s easy. Go for what’s smart by going big”.

His speech, hosted by the Smart Energy Council, comes ahead of his meeting with the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, in Canberra on Tuesday. Australia must submit its 2035 target under the Paris climate agreement by September. The Climate Change Authority has yet to deliver its advice to Bowen on the target. Previously, it has pointed to a target of between 65% and 75% reduction on 2005 levels.

The authority says on its website:

development of the 2035 targets advice is currently underway. This includes complex whole-of-economy modelling, policy analysis, consultation and consideration of international trends in climate action.

Stiell said Australia had a strong economy and among the world’s highest living standards. “If you want to keep them, doubling down on clean energy is an economic no-brainer.

"So the choice is clear. The question is: how far are you willing to go?

"The answer is due in September – when Australia’s next national climate plan is due. This isn’t just the next policy milestone. It’s a defining moment.”

Stiell said this was the moment for a climate plan that did not just write a vision into policy, “but delivers in spades for your people.

"Go for what will build lasting wealth and national security.”

He said this could be “Australia’s moment”.

“You’ve got world-class resources, a skilled, inventive workforce, and a A$22.7 billion plan – Future Made in Australia – with real ambition behind it.

"You’ve doubled renewable capacity since 2019.

"You’ve enshrined targets in law, and you’ve got strong, long-term policy signals.”

On the other side of the coin, Stiell warned if climate change was unchecked it would cripple Australia’s food production, and the country could face $6.8 trillion GDP loss by 2050.

“Living standards could drop by over $7,000 per person per year. And rising seas, resource pressures, and extreme weather would destabilise Australia’s neighbourhood – from Pacific Island nations to Southeast Asia – threatening your security.”

Bowen will also be hoping for some intelligence from Stiell on whether Australia’s bid to host next year’s COP will succeed.

Meanwhile, the push continues within the Coalition from those who want to dump its commitment to the net zero emissions by 2050 target.

The Western Australian Liberal party state council on the weekend called for the federal opposition to abandon the target. The motion came from the party’s Canning division, which is the seat held by frontbencher Andrew Hastie.

Hastie, speaking after it was carried, said it sent a “clear signal” to Australians that “we stand for something”.

In his weekly newsletter to subscribers, Hastie denounces the “net zero scam”.

“The Net Zero economy favours big, foreign, commercial interests that employ platoons of sophisticated lobbyists to protect the legislated system of climate taxes, subsidies, and penalties that favours renewable energy.

"They cloak their commercial interests in the language of climate and crisis and emergency.

"The Labor Government is their enabler.”

The opposition has a review of its energy policy underway that Hastie, despite being in the shadow cabinet, appears to be pre-empting.

In the House of Representatives on Monday, the Nationals Barnaby Joyce introduced his private member’s bill to scrap Australia’s commitment to net zero.

“Net zero is going to have absolutely no effect on the climate whatsoever. The vast majority of the globe in both population and GDP are not participating in it, he told the house.

"So why are we doing this to ourselves?”

It had changed the standard of living for many Australians, he said. “Our GDP per person is going down. People are becoming poorer. If you go into shops they talk about 30 to 40% of their costs being energy”. In a more pronounced way, it was hurting the poorest, who needed the power to keep themselves warm, Joyce said.

Coalition rebels defect to support One Nation motion against net zero

In the Senate late Monday, Nationals Matt Canavan and Liberal Alex Antic defected from the opposition’s position to vote for a Pauline Hanson’s One Nation motion condemning net zero.

The motion called on the Senate to recognise as a matter of urgency,“The need for the Government to scrap its net-zero emissions target and instead prioritise providing Australian families, farmers, businesses and industry with cheap and reliable energy, to protect jobs, ensure energy security, lower the cost of living and restore Australia’s economic competitiveness”.

Hanson said net zero was “the most suicidal policy Australia has ever had”.

Liberal frontbencher Paul Scarr said the opposition would not be diverted from its policy review process.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Climate change “imperils all forms of life” and countries must tackle the problem or face consequences under international law, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found.

The court delivered its long-awaited advisory opinion overnight. The momentous case opens the door for countries impacted by climate disasters to sue major emitting countries for reparations.

And citizens could seek to hold governments to account for a failure to safeguard their human rights if their own or other countries fail to take adequate action to ensure a safe climate.

Here’s what the court ruled – and the global ramifications likely to flow from it.

Climate change breaches human rights

The ICJ case was instigated by law students at the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu in 2019. They successfully launched a campaign for the court to examine two key issues: the obligations of countries to protect the climate from greenhouse gases, and the legal consequences for failing to do so.

The court found a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is essential for the enjoyment of many other human rights. As such, it found, the full enjoyment of human rights cannot be ensured without the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment.

The ruling confirms climate change is much more than a legal problem. Rather, the justices concluded, it is an:

existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.

Most nations have signed up to global human rights agreements such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The ICJ ruling means parties to those agreements must take measures to protect the climate system and other parts of the environment.

An advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice is not legally binding. But it is an authoritative description of the state of the law and the rights of countries to seek reparations if the law is breached. As such, it carries great legal weight.

Just as climate science assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have become the gold standard for understanding the causes and impacts of climate change, the court’s ruling provides a clear baseline against which to assess countries’ action, or inaction, on climate change.

Keeping 1.5°C alive?

In recent years, many states’ emissions reduction targets under the Paris Agreement have seemed to “settle” at levels which would hold global temperature increases to 2°C at best.

But the International Court of Justice ruled the much more ambitious 1.5°C goal had become the scientifically based consensus target under the Paris Agreement.

Some countries argued formal emissions targets should be left to the discretion of each government. However, the court found against this. Rather, each nation’s targets had to be in line with – and make an adequate contribution to – the global goal of holding heating to 1.5°C.

The court found each state’s emissions reduction pledges should be judged against a stringent “due diligence” standard. The standard takes into account each country’s historical contributions to emissions, level of development and national circumstances, among other factors.

The ruling means rich countries, such as Australia, will be required under international law to make more ambitious emission-reduction pledges under the Paris Agreement, such as for the 2035 target currently under consideration by the Albanese government.

The court decision also provides a measure of climate justice for small island states, which have historically low emissions but face a much higher risk of damage from climate change than other nations.

Holding states accountable for inaction

Because climate change is global, it is difficult – but not impossible – to attribute damage from extreme weather to the actions of any one nation or group of nations.

On this question, the court said while climate change is caused by the cumulative impact of many human activities, it is scientifically possible to determine each nation’s total contribution to global emissions, taking into account both historical and current emissions.

If a nation experiences damage caused by the failure of another nation, or group of nations, to fulfil international climate obligations, the ruling means legal proceedings may be launched against the nations causing the harm. It may result in compensation or other remedies.

For small, climate-vulnerable nations such as those in the Alliance of Small Island States, this opens more legal options in their efforts to encourage high-emitting nations to properly address climate change.

Importantly, the court made clear nations can be legally liable even if damage from climate change comes from many causes, including from the activities of private actors such as companies.

That means nations cannot seek an exemption because others have contributed to the problem. They must also act to regulate companies and other entities under their jurisdiction whose activities contribute to climate change.

Paris Agreement quitters aren’t safe

One line of argument put to the court by Australia and other states was that climate treaties represented the only obligations to tackle climate change under international law.

But the court found this was not the case. Rather, other international laws applied.

The United States pulled out of the Paris Agreement earlier this year. The court’s opinion means the US and other nations are still accountable for climate harms under other international laws by which all countries are bound.

Could this lead to greater climate action?

The International Court of Justice has produced a truly historic ruling.

It will set a new baseline in terms what countries need to do to address climate change and opens up new avenues of recourse against high-emitting states not doing enough on climate change.

Jacqueline Peel, Professor of Law and Director, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The world’s highest court says countries are legally obliged to prevent harms caused by climate change, in a ruling that repudiates Australia’s claims it is not legally responsible for emissions from our fossil fuel exports.

The landmark ruling overnight by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will reverberate in courts, parliaments and boardrooms the world over.

In a closely watched case at The Hague, the judges were asked to clarify the legal obligations countries have to protect the Earth’s climate system for current and future generations. They were also asked to clarify the legal consequences for nations that fail to do this.

At issue was the scope of legal obligations. During the court’s deliberations, Australia sided with other fossil fuel exporters and major emitters – including Saudi Arabia, the United States and China – to argue state obligations on climate change are restricted to those set out in climate-specific treaties such as the Paris Agreement.

But the court disagreed. It found countries have additional obligations to protect the climate and take action to prevent climate harm inside and outside their boundaries. These obligations arise in human rights law, the law of the sea, and general principles of international law.

This clear statement will have groundbreaking consequences. It means Australia must set a 2035 emissions reduction target in line with the best available science, as required under the Paris Agreement. But it must also go further, by regulating the fossil fuel industry to prevent further harm.

Australia’s arguments rejected

The ICJ is the primary legal organ of the United Nations. Its key role is to settle disputes between countries and clarify international law as it applies to nation states.

While weighing up the obligations of countries to address the climate crisis, the court heard legal arguments from almost 100 countries, making it the largest case ever heard by the ICJ.

The case threatened major implications for fossil-fuel producers such as Australia, which is heavily reliant on coal and gas exports.

In his oral presentation to the ICJ, Australian Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue told the court only the Paris Agreement should apply when it comes to mitigating climate change. Under the Paris rules, countries must set targets to cut domestic emissions, but they are not required to report emissions created when their fossil fuel exports are burned overseas.

Donaghue and the Australian delegation also suggested responsibility for harms caused by climate change could not be pinned on individual states. Australia also argued protecting human rights does not extend to obligations to tackle climate change.

The ICJ largely rejected these arguments.

Fossil fuel era is over

The court found Australia, and other fossil fuel producers, are obliged under international law to prevent fossil fuel companies in their territory from causing significant climate harm.

This will essentially require a managed phase out of fossil fuel production. As the ICJ ruling says:

Failure of a State to take appropriate action to protect the climate system from [greenhouse gas] emissions – including through fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies – may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that State.

Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and gas. When burned overseas, emissions from Australia’s fossil fuel exports are more than double those of its entire domestic economy.

Australia has approved hundreds of oil, gas and coal projects in recent decades. Dozens more are in the approvals pipeline. Final federal approval is still pending for Woodside’s massive Northwest Shelf gas project – which is set to add millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year, for decades.

The Australian government must heed the message from the Hague. The days of impunity for the fossil fuel industry are coming to an end.

A spark of hope from the Pacific

Today’s ruling is remarkable for where it originated.

In 2019, 27 law students at the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu were given a challenge: find the most ambitious legal pathways towards climate justice.

Each year, Vanuatu faces the prospect of cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding rain and drought. Climate change compounds the risk to island communities – people who have done the least to contribute to the problem.

The students decided to file a case with the world court. And so began a legal campaign that travelled from Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila, through the halls of the United Nations in New York and to the world court in the Hague.

In 2023 Vanuatu and other island nations succeeded in passing a UN General Assembly resolution. It asked the ICJ to give an advisory opinion on countries’ obligations to protect the climate system and legal consequences for states causing “significant harm” to Earth’s climate.

This week’s ruling delivers poetic justice to Vanuatu and other vulnerable island states.

A new era for climate justice

The court’s findings are likely to influence a wave of climate litigation worldwide. It could shape legal reasoning in Australia, too.

Last week, a Federal Court judge found the Australian government has no legal duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change. If that case is appealed, a superior court may revisit the government’s obligations – and have regard to the ICJ ruling in doing so.

The ICJ decision will also be relevant for the Queensland Land Court, which this week began hearing a challenge to stop a greenfield mine proposed by Whitehaven Coal – citing environmental and human rights impacts of the project’s emissions.

Clarified international law obligations should also guide policymakers in the Australian parliament. With a huge majority in the House of Representatives and a climate-friendly Senate crossbench, the Albanese government has a mandate to implement policy in line with Australia’s international law obligations.

Wesley Morgan, Research Associate, Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney and Gillian Moon, Senior Visiting Fellow and Research Lead, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Federal Court has handed down its long-awaited judgement in a four-year climate case brought by Torres Strait Islanders.

Elders Uncle Pabai Pabai and Uncle Paul Kabai took the Australian government to court on behalf of their community, arguing the government has a duty of care to protect them from climate change. They also asked the court to legally recognise the cultural loss and harm they are experiencing from sea-level rise and climate-induced flooding.

But the court declined to recognise either duty or to legally recognise cultural harm.

Many climate justice advocates hoped today’s decision would be the climate equivalent of the famous Mabo decision, which recognised native title. There are many parallels. At stake was the legal recognition of the harms and loss of connection to Country that Australia’s First Peoples are experiencing through government inaction on climate change.

Vulnerability and leadership

Torres Strait Islanders are well placed to bring this kind of legal claim.

To sue a government for climate inaction, plaintiffs often have to show they are particularly impacted by climate harms over and above the rest of the population.

Claims across the world have been brought by Indigenous peoples, farmers, young people who will experience catastrophic climate impacts in the future, and people with heat-sensitive illnesses.

The islands on which Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul live, Saibai and Boigu, are extremely low-lying. Climate-related flooding is already affecting whether people can live there.

Importantly, small differences in future emissions scenarios will significantly impact their habitability. Every fraction of a degree of warming will matter.

During the case, climate scientists gave evidence that on the current emissions scenario, the islands are highly likely to be uninhabitable less than 25 years from now.

This will force Torres Strait Islanders to leave, severing them from thousands of years of tradition, fulfilment of their traditional practices (called Ailan Kastom), and connection to country and identity.

The legal claim against the Commonwealth

Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul argued the Commonwealth government has a duty to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change when setting national emissions-reduction targets. They argued the government breached that duty by not setting targets in line with the best available science. This would involve calculating reduction targets by reference to Australia’s share to keep global warming to as close to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as possible.

Second, they argued the government has a duty to protect property, the fulfilment of their traditional customs, and the health and life of Torres Strait Islanders from climate impacts. They argued the government breached that duty by failing to properly fund the construction of sea walls.

What the Federal Court said

Justice Michael Wigney’s judgement emphasised the existential threat of climate change. It noted Torres Strait Islanders are particularly vulnerable to climate impacts and face a “bleak future” unless urgent action is taken.

But it accepted the government’s argument that setting emissions reductions targets, and allocating funding for protective infrastructure, involves “policy” considerations a court can’t review.

When do governments owe a duty of care to climate vulnerable groups?

Plaintiffs elsewhere in the world have successfully argued that their government owed them a duty of care to protect them from climate harms by lowering emissions. But the argument has had mixed success in Australia.

To establish a legal duty of care, plaintiffs need to show they have some kind of special relationship with the defendant. This relationship arises through factors such as the plaintiff’s vulnerability to a certain harm, and the defendant’s knowledge of, and control over, that harm.

As First Peoples, Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul argued they have this kind of relationship with the government. They pointed to a range of factors such as the particular vulnerability of the Torres Strait Islanders, and the government’s control over climate harms to them.

Novel duties of care can be imposed on government and public authorities. But Australian courts have sometimes declined to do this where they would have to judge how governments have weighed different policy considerations.

This is partly because it would be too difficult for the court to decide whether the government had met the legal standard of behaviour.

Courts are more willing to find a government owes a duty of care where the government is merely applying a policy, or where it can measure the government’s behaviour against clear standards. But courts have also acknowledged that the distinction between making policy and applying policy is blurry.

Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul argued the Australian government has committed to the Paris Agreement, and this sets out a clear legal standard of the “best available science”.

The Australian government argued its decisions about climate policy involve complex political priorities that a court shouldn’t review. It argued it shouldn’t be bound by the best available science as a legal standard.

The role of courts in protecting people from climate harm

Today’s decision is a setback for both the climate and Indigenous justice movements. But the situation isn’t as bleak as it may seem.

Across the world, plaintiffs in courts are gaining legal ground on climate accountability. It’s becoming easier to attribute harms to emitters, and to develop standards against which governments can be measured. And courts frequently reject government arguments that their contribution to climate change is minimal. They emphasise that each country must do its share for global collective action to work.

It is a question of when, rather than if, law will adapt to deal with climate impacts. Much like a rising tide breaking against a seawall, the future impact of climate change on things that law already protects is too extreme for the law to resist.

Liz Hicks, Lecturer in Law, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.