Cav's Place

This year’s Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 24, unsurprisingly the earliest date ever, but the far more relevant development when it comes to environmental matters took place the previous day, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stated that countries must prevent harm to the climate system. While unanimous, the ruling is only a non-binding advisory opinion, so it’s toothless in itself, and it also seems to focus on what courts generally deal with, which is imposing penalties after a crime is committed rather than the methods, other than the fear of said penalties, meant to prevent that from happening in the first place. However, such a ruling should carry a fair amount of weight in any future negotiations for international treaties, and also in the probable outcome of the trials that states responsible for causing environmental damage will have to face, and it is good to see it stated that the courts could order those responsible to restore the damaged ecosystems, with compensation being secondary and, from what I gather, mainly in case the damage is irreparable. And, crucially, the ruling also specifies that states are liable for the actions of the private sector and must use regulations to stop corporations from harming the climate, and also that states must work together, coordinating their actions in order to meaningfully protect the climate.
On top of wanting a ruling with actual teeth and the focus to be on prevention rather than penalties or even restoration after the damage has already been done, I’d have wanted to see more about the environment as a whole, and humanity’s responsibility towards the other species it shares, or should be sharing, this planet with, moving past this anthropocentric view and a relatively narrow focus on what is understood as the climate, which leaves plenty of room for harm, some of it even in the name of moving away from fossil fuels, such as destroying rivers for hydropower, open-cast mines for the materials needed for the energy transition, or even nuclear power. But this is what the biggest efforts, and those that may have a chance of eventual success that might just surpass that of a snowflake in the Hell that humanity has been turning this world into pretty much all along, are focusing on, and this is how courts generally approach matters, so in realistic terms, it is an important success, and one that may noticeably improve those chances… Perhaps taking them closer to a snowball’s, albeit still a small and fluffy one, especially since it’s just the biggest emitters that the ICJ has no way to enforce even its binding decisions on.