In this article NCF research officer Sam Lewis reflects on the recent complaint by Australian citizens to the UN Human Rights Council over their government’s failure to protect them from the harms of climate change. He uses the example to reflect on last year’s International Court of Justice ruling that countries can sue each other over climate change and considers what potential impact it may have for the UN to hold countries to account for hypocritical climate policies. Whilst he is realistic about how limited their current impact will be he argues that it is an important first step for international organisations to enforce the climate agreements that they put into place.

The Case

A group of ten Australians backed by the Human Rights Law Centre, Environmental Justice Australia and the US-based Earthjustice have launched a complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee. They argue that the Australian government has failed to protect them from the harms of climate change. The individuals involved, which range from First Nation Leaders to disabled people and young people, have highlighted various ways that they have been impacted by the country’s climate policies. These include wildfires, power outages in their flats and forced relocation away from water sources. 

Importantly they have argued that Australian coal, gas and oil exports are inconsistent with the Paris Agreement’s target to limit global warming to 1.5C. Therefore, they claim that the Australian government has violated its legal obligation to protect the climate and to prevent climate related harms. Australia is the top global exporter of metallurgical (coking) coal used in steelmaking and the second-largest exporter of thermal coal used for electricity generation. Australia is also the world’s second largest exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG).

The Ruling 

The idea that Australia has a legal obligation to prevent harm from the climate comes from an International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling last year. This states that countries can sue each other over climate change. Whilst critics of this ruling have argued that it is impossible to blame specific countries for climate change it must be said that Australia has a significant impact. Overall Australia is the third largest exporter of coal and gas. This economic dependency on fossil fuels does not seem like it is going to change with Australian gas exploration recently hitting a ten year high. 

Importantly there is a massive gap between the rhetoric of Australian governments and their actions when it comes to climate change. The Australian government were signatories on the Paris Agreement and the country backed the UN resolution supporting the ICJs ruling. Despite this, as we have seen, they are playing a significant impact in failing to achieve the Paris agreement’s 1.5C target and in the process failing to meet the targets they pledged to meet.

This is not simply an Australian issue. It is instead reflective of the hypocrisy of a large number of wealthy countries who back climate targets but are unwilling to accept the significant role they have in contributing to climate change. Climate change is an issue created and accelerated by the world’s largest countries. China, the US and India contribute to 42.6% of global greenhouse emissions (although India’s impact is lower than the likes of the EU if one measures in terms of emissions per person) whilst the bottom 100 countries account for 2.9%. 

This is the exact reason for the ICJ ruling. The initial resolution was drawn up by the Pacific Island Nation of Vanuatu, a country that is recognised as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the impacts of climate change. The purpose of this ruling is therefore to acknowledge how the climate policies of larger countries are having a disastrous impact on others and hopefully to begin remedying it. 

The complaint is the first real attempt that we have seen to apply the landmark ruling. It reflects this new ability for both countries and citizens to call out the hypocrisy of governments who support climate initiatives but do not take any personal responsibility to put them into action. 

An Important First Step

Whilst there is certainly reason to be grateful that the complaint is being considered it is important to also be realistic about its potential impact. Any potential ruling by the ICJ would be non-binding although the Australian government would be expected to respond. 

The importance is therefore not necessarily the complaint itself but instead its role as a first step. It is the beginning of the ICJ’s ruling being put into practice. There is merit in this complaint in of itself as it puts pressure on the Australian government but hopefully it is just the beginning of more meaningful action that will be put into place against the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters and polluters. If climate targets are to have any meaning they must be enforced, hopefully this complaint is the beginning of that enforcement.

The opening session of the Next Century Foundation’s forthcoming Healing the Nations zoom conference is on climate change