Seriously, they couldn’t have made the case using Zoom to eliminate that carbon footprint?
Handful of countries responsible for climate crisis, top court told
A handful of countries should be held legally responsible for the ongoing impacts of climate change, representatives of vulnerable states have told judges at the international court of justice (ICJ).
During a hearing at the Peace Palace in The Hague, which began on Monday, Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change and environment, said responsibility for the climate crisis lay squarely with “a handful of readily identifiable states” that had produced the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions but stood to lose the least from the impacts.
The court heard how Pacific island states such as Vanuatu were bearing the brunt of rising sea levels and increasingly frequent and severe disasters. “We find ourselves on the frontlines of a crisis we did not create,” Regenvanu said.
I’ve pointed out numerous times that sea rise is well below what should expected for a Holocene warm period
Over the next two weeks, the court will hear statements from 98 countries, including wealthy developed states with the greatest historical responsibility for the climate emergency, such as the UK and Russia, and states that have contributed very little to global greenhouse gas emissions but stand to bear the brunt of their impact, including Bangladesh and Sudan as well as Pacific island countries.
The US and China, the world’s biggest emitters, will make statements too, even though neither fully recognises the court’s authority.
Regenvanu told the court that states continued to emit vast amounts of greenhouse gases in spite of “increasingly dire warnings” from scientists, noting that emissions had increased by more than 50% since 1990.
I suggest that the nations being blamed stop allowing flights and shipments of goods via cargo ships to these nations, many of which have numerous airports. Let’s see how they survive, especially with not fossil fuels to power anything. Will they have enough food?
So. Who should pay? The producer of the energy? The consumer of the energy? Or the consumer of someone else’s energy on the other side of the planet? If the island nations were serious, they would tax their own use of Carbon emitters and byproducts to pay for all the vacations they want. But this isn’t about the right to tax themselves. They want to effectively tax the 330 million people in the USA. Taxing someone else is always appealing to the recipients. For the contributors, not so much. As the saying goes, when robbing Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul’s support.
It doesn’t matter what the ICJ decides: President Trump will tell them to go f(ornicate) themselves.