Many Catholic organizations applauded a United Nations resolution that asks the International Court of Justice to spell out nations’ legal responsibilities for preserving the earth’s climate as well as the penalties they would face if they failed to do so.
Young people from the Pacific Islands and the tiny island nation of Vanuatu, whose future is endangered by sea level rise and storms, advocated for the resolution. The resolution was unanimously approved by the UN General Assembly on March 29.
Given that it takes concrete and secure steps on the way out of the current impasse in terms of environmental protection, the Laudato Si’ Movement, an international network of Catholic organizations working to protect the environment in line with Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on the need to care for the earth, welcomed the resolution.
The movement’s Carmelite Father Eduardo Agosta Scarel told OSV News the resolution “is asking the international court to issue an informed opinion on the legality or otherwise of the current failure of States to comply with the existing normative framework to care for the earth’s climate, and to highlight inconsistencies, noncompliance and loopholes.”
ICJ opinions are nonbinding but hold significant moral and legal weight.
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Supporters of the U.N. resolution hope the international court’s forthcoming advisory opinion regarding climate protections-expected in about two years-will urge world governments to speed up their climate action.
The Catholic Climate Covenant, a Washington-based organization inspired by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2001 statement on climate change, told OSV News it supported the U.N. resolution’s “underlying principle … to ensure greater international climate financing.”
“We encourage further U.S. and global strengthening of diplomatic climate policy solutions that answer the urgent cries of our common home and the people most affected by climate change,” Jose Aguto, Catholic Climate Covenant executive director, told OSV News.
Speaking ahead of the new resolution’s adoption March 29, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres reported that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed that humans were responsible for virtually all the global temperature increases over the last 200 years.
Story adapted from UCA News
