The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has ruled the greenhouse gas emissions can count towards damage to our oceans. Small island nations have praised the ruling because they are the most threatened by raising sea levels and the boiling of local waters. The ruling also shows how science can inform policy in a meaningful way because the court clearly understood how oceans absorb our emissions over time and lead to acidification and other problems.
This ruling is merely a step towards better protections of our common waters and it will only mean smoother sailing for future efforts.
What happened today was that the law and science met together in this tribunal, and both won,” said Cheryl Bazard, ambassador to the European Union of the Bahamas, one of nine Caribbean and Pacific island nations that sought the opinion.
Small island nations with scant economic power but acutely vulnerable to climate change have long felt neglected by successive global summits where pledges to cut carbon emissions have fallen far short of the minimum for limiting the worst effects of global warming.
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A similar potential precedent was laid down last month, when the European Court of Human Rights agreed with plaintiffs who argued that Switzerland was violating their human rights by not doing enough to combat climate warming.