It’s been a long time coming, but when the World Court delivered its opinion on climate change this week, the judges overturned decades of official timidity about naming the main cause of climate change. The opinion was long (140 pages) but interspersed among the legalese, the court threw F-bombs aplenty, fingering “fossil fuels” as the prime culprit 35 times in the summary alone.

It was the first time that the International Court of Justice had ruled on questions about climate change and its advisory opinion was wide-ranging. The judges unanimously agreed that countries must tackle fossil fuels — both burning and extraction — and that failing to curb climate change compromises human rights. The judges concluded that rich, historically high-polluting countries have a particular obligation to act and are responsible for the actions of corporations operating in their territories. And they found that failing to regulate and take meaningful action on climate change creates the legal basis for compensation and other kinds of “reparations” to nations suffering climate damages.

In one of the F-bombs, the judges very clearly warned that, “Failure of a State to take appropriate action to protect the climate system from GHG 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.”

Representatives from the most vulnerable nations were elated. "I didn't expect it to be this good," said Vanuatu's Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu, standing on the steps of the Peace Palace in The Hague.

Known across the Pacific as “Minister Ralph,” Regenvanu has been pushing climate change towards the docket of the World Court for years. But it wasn’t his idea. 

The idea started in the most improbable manner. It came from a group of students at the University of the South Pacific brainstorming strategies for a class assignment in 2019. The students decided to pursue the project........

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