2023-12-29 18:20:19
The final text adopted at the end of the COP28 negotiations does not meet the climate emergency. At a time when the COPs are increasingly showing their limits, there is hope, and this is not the time for defeatism. An ambitious, historic procedure launched by young people is being initiated before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, which will be the new framework for discussions.
Acceding to a request made since 2021 by Vanuatu, which took up a campaign launched by students from the South Pacific, the United Nations General Assembly decided, on March 29, 2023, by a historic vote by consensus, to seize the ICJ. This will have to render an advisory opinion on several legal questions which aim to clarify the obligations imposed on States to protect the climate system and to specify their responsibilities towards vulnerable States, and current and future generations.
On March 22, 2024, States will be able to submit to the Court their own interpretations of international law in order to guide judges in their responses. These contributions must be ambitious, and include arguments of justice and equity, so that the Court’s opinion is progressive and makes it possible to raise the ambitions of future COPs.
COP28 leaves a bitter note for young people
Youth organizations mobilized in France for climate justice are therefore asking the French State and the European Union to submit arguments based on science in favor of justice and equity to the ICJ. The COP28 negotiations end on a bitter note for the mobilized young people and civil society organizations.
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Despite the expected implementation of the loss and damage fund, intended to help the countries most vulnerable to climate change, and the mention of a transition away from fossil fuels, each progress of this COP is accompanied by numerous concerns. The sums promised by States to fund loss and damage and adaptation funds are largely insufficient.
The convoluted vocabulary used on the subject of fossil fuels ultimately allowed the text to be adopted, but distanced itself from the demands of civil society and many States for the mention of a rapid, complete, fair and equitable exit. References to so-called “transitional” technologies, which are expensive and ineffective for some, illustrate this. Human rights are only mentioned twice.
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