A UN resolution says governments are legally obliged to do everything possible to fight the climate crisis

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution recognising the legal responsibility of states in the context of the climate crisis. The vote gives political force and continuity to the advisory opinion issued in 2025 by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), establishing that action on global warming is no longer a warm recommendation or an impassioned appeal, but a legal obligation under international law.

Put simply: those who pollute in breach of international agreements can be held liable for damages.

The text, promoted by Vanuatu, a small Pacific island nation already facing the earliest and most severe consequences of rising sea levels, together with a coalition of countries for which climate breakdown is an existential issue, passed with 141 votes in favour, 28 abstentions, and 8 votes against.

The “no” camp is, in many ways, familiar territory. Anyone following international climate politics will recognise the usual suspects: the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Belarus, Liberia, and Yemen.

It is not difficult to see why countries that are, in some cases, literally at war with one another find themselves aligned on the same side of the debate: many are major fossil fuel powers, structurally disinterested in an accelerated ecological transition and, in some cases, actively invested in slowing it down.

The key novelty of this UN resolution lies in its explicit demand that all member states eliminate environmental harm within their own borders and strictly comply with commitments already made under the Paris Agreement.

The court has effectively established that states in breach of these obligations are legally responsible for their conduct: they must not only halt it, but also guarantee it will not be repeated, while fully covering the costs of repairing the damage already caused.

The resolution also urges countries to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030. It further calls for doubling the global average annual rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and for the full decarbonisation of their economies.

As UN Secretary-General António Guterres has emphasised, the resolution once again highlights the paradox at the heart of the climate crisis: those least responsible for emissions, and therefore for global warming, are often those paying the highest price.

For Guterres, the path towards climate justice runs through a rapid and equitable transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy, now the cheapest and safest option for keeping the rise in global temperature within the critical 1.5°C threshold.

With this vote, political inertia in the face of the climate crisis is beginning to read as a form of international wrongdoing.