The world's wealthiest nations have a legal obligation to reduce heat-trapping pollution and will have to pay up if they do not, the United Nations' highest court declared in a landmark advisory opinion issued July 23. 

In the comprehensive, 133-page opinion, the International Court of Justice called rising global temperatures "an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet." 

The court went even further, recognizing access to a healthy environment as a basic human right. 

"The human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is essential for the enjoyment of other human rights," the court wrote.

As requested by the U.N. General Assembly, the advisory opinion surveyed a number of international treaties as well as customary international law, concluding that, under existing agreements and established law, countries have a duty to take climate action.

This duty extends to governments policing the behavior of private actors within their borders, the court found. 

Perhaps most significantly, the court concluded that governments that do not comply with these obligations under international law could be compelled to pay economic damages to those negatively impacted by the changing climate.  

While the ICJ's advisory opinion is not itself legally binding, environmental advocates heralded the ruling as crucial in the fight to rein in rising global temperatures. 

"This advisory opinion is a tool for climate justice," explained Vishal Prasad, a law student who urged the island nation of Vanuatu to pursue its case before the ICJ, per Reuters. "And boy, has the ICJ given us a strong tool to carry on the fight for climate justice." 

Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's minister for climate change, praised the opinion in comments made outside the court. 

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The ICJ "has confirmed what vulnerable nations have been saying and have known for so long," Regenvanu said, according to the Guardian. "That states have legal obligations to act on climate change." 

Despite the strength of the ICJ's advisory opinion, its practical impact remains to be seen.

Even as it confirmed countries' existing legal obligation to combat rising global temperatures, the ICJ acknowledged that the law alone will not be sufficient to overcome such a monumental challenge.  

"A complete solution to this daunting, and self-inflicted, problem requires the contribution of all fields of human knowledge, whether law, science, economics or any other," the court wrote.

"Above all, a lasting and satisfactory solution requires human will and wisdom — at the individual, social, and political levels — to change our habits, comforts, and current way of life in order to secure a future for ourselves and those who are yet to come."

Regardless of the policies being implemented at the national or international levels, there are simple actions that anyone can take every day to "change our habits, comforts and current way of life," as the court urged. 

Riding a bicycle instead of driving, taking public transit, driving an EV, or installing solar panels on your roof are all great ways to improve local air quality while also reducing planet-warming pollution. 

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