Australia could become the subject of legal action after an international court said countries have an obligation to prevent climate change harm and redress damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
The non-binding advisory opinion was issued by a 15-judge panel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in The Netherlands overnight.
It opens the way for countries to potentially sue each other over climate change impacts.
Social justice group ActionAid Australia, which lobbies for women’s rights, said the advice was a wake-up call for the Labor federal government.
“This ruling is a powerful tool we can use to demand that those most responsible for this climate crisis be held accountable,” the group’s Vanuatu country manager Flora Vano said on Thursday.
Ms Fino, who travelled to the Hague last year to deliver testimony as part of the court proceedings, said women and girls on the frontlines of the climate crisis will be able to fight for justice and accountability.
ActionAid Australia executive director Michelle Higelin said the ruling was clear.
“Australia must do all it can to keep global heating to 1.5 degrees,” she said.
“This is not a choice, this is an obligation to take stronger and more urgent action.”
ActionAid wants the government to “urgently” transition away from fossil fuels and increase funding to low-income countries, including those in the Pacific, to support climate adaptation efforts.
Global science and policy institute, Climate Analytics, which has an Australia-Pacific region office, said the court has pointed to potentially serious legal consequences.
Action could be taken under customary international law if countries don’t put forward climate targets aligned to the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
“Importantly, these obligations also apply to countries whether or not they are Parties to the Paris Agreement,” it added.
Australia’s current commitment to the Paris Agreement includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
The world court’s opinion comes after Vanuatu University law students argued that the people of Pacific island countries are unjustly bearing the brunt of climate change compared to high-emitting economies.
“The degradation of the climate system and of other parts of the environment impairs the enjoyment of a range of rights protected by human rights law,” presiding judge Yuji Iwasawa said, reading out the court’s opinion.
The court decision “confirms that states’ obligations to protect human rights require taking measures to protect the climate system … including mitigation and adaptation measures,” judge Hilary Charlesworth, an Australian member of the court, said in a separate opinion.
The 133-page opinion was in response to two questions the United Nations General Assembly put to the UN court.
The first was: what are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions?
The second was: regarding the legal consequences for governments when their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment?
A response is being sought from the federal government.
Vanuatu Minister for Climate Change Adaptation Ralph Regenvanu described the court’s opinion as a “very important course correction in this critically important time”.
“For the first time in history, the ICJ has spoken directly about the biggest threat facing humanity,” he said at The Hague.
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