Vanuatu calls upcoming ICJ ruling a 'game-changer' for climate justice
On the eve of the pivotal ruling in The Hague, the country's Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu, 54, who opened the ICJ's hearings in December, spoke about it.
What does this case mean for Vanuatu and the world?
"The Pacific Island leaders have made it very clear that climate change is the single greatest threat to the future of the Pacific peoples.
"We're talking about climate change, the thing that's going to take away the future of our children.
"For many Pacific countries, it's existential, because they will disappear, the low-lying countries like Tuvalu, like Kiribati.
"If we cannot reduce the harm we're seeing, or try to slow it down, we're really facing the very worst consequences really soon."
What are you hoping for from the ruling?
"We're hoping that the ICJ will say that it is a legal obligation of states to address climate change. You have to respect other states and their right to self-determination.
"Colonialism is gone — you know, supposedly gone — but this is a hangover where your conduct as a state continues to suppress the future of the people of another country.
"And you don't have a legal right to do that under international law. And not only that, but if your actions have already caused this harm, there have to be reparations for that."
What impact is climate change having on your country?
"In Vanuatu, we're seeing large areas of land that were previously habitable, and people who have lived there for a long time can no longer live there."
"The other thing you're seeing is really frequent and more intense tropical cyclones, which are the most damaging natural weather event we get in Vanuatu.
"The cyclone season is getting longer, we're seeing more extreme rainfall events, which cause flooding, landslides, that kind of thing.
"And the effect on the economy as well for the government. We're seeing a large amount of damage that has to be addressed by the state.
"You're seeing a large proportion of our GDP just going to rebuilding, recovering, and then preparing.
"We need assistance to be able to build resilient public infrastructure, so we don't have to continue to spend money on rebuilding."
How do you feel on the eve of the ruling?
"I feel optimistic. I think we're going to get a good opinion...
"We are crossing fingers, but very hopeful that it'll be a good result.
"And I think it will also be a game-changer for the whole climate discourse we're going through.
"We've been going through this for 30 years, you know, so it'll shift. It'll shift the narrative, which is what we need to have."
What consequences do you see from the ruling?
"I think the advisory opinion will be very powerful within states to be used by people taking cases against their governments.
"For every court, this will be something they can use. Whether it's a municipal-level court or a state-level court, they will be able to use this new ruling to force, try to make governments be more accountable and do more.
"But also I think for countries like Vanuatu... we will be able to take this to help us make our arguments.
"Legal clarity will be provided for a lot of the stuff we're arguing about for so long."
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Japan Times
12 hours ago
- Japan Times
Vanuatu calls upcoming ICJ ruling a 'game-changer' for climate justice
The island nation of Vanuatu has been the driving force behind efforts to get the International Court of Justice to deliver its first-ever legal opinion on climate change. On the eve of the pivotal ruling in The Hague, the country's Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu, 54, who opened the ICJ's hearings in December, spoke about it. What does this case mean for Vanuatu and the world? "The Pacific Island leaders have made it very clear that climate change is the single greatest threat to the future of the Pacific peoples. "We're talking about climate change, the thing that's going to take away the future of our children. "For many Pacific countries, it's existential, because they will disappear, the low-lying countries like Tuvalu, like Kiribati. "If we cannot reduce the harm we're seeing, or try to slow it down, we're really facing the very worst consequences really soon." What are you hoping for from the ruling? "We're hoping that the ICJ will say that it is a legal obligation of states to address climate change. You have to respect other states and their right to self-determination. "Colonialism is gone — you know, supposedly gone — but this is a hangover where your conduct as a state continues to suppress the future of the people of another country. "And you don't have a legal right to do that under international law. And not only that, but if your actions have already caused this harm, there have to be reparations for that." What impact is climate change having on your country? "In Vanuatu, we're seeing large areas of land that were previously habitable, and people who have lived there for a long time can no longer live there." "The other thing you're seeing is really frequent and more intense tropical cyclones, which are the most damaging natural weather event we get in Vanuatu. "The cyclone season is getting longer, we're seeing more extreme rainfall events, which cause flooding, landslides, that kind of thing. "And the effect on the economy as well for the government. We're seeing a large amount of damage that has to be addressed by the state. "You're seeing a large proportion of our GDP just going to rebuilding, recovering, and then preparing. "We need assistance to be able to build resilient public infrastructure, so we don't have to continue to spend money on rebuilding." How do you feel on the eve of the ruling? "I feel optimistic. I think we're going to get a good opinion... "We are crossing fingers, but very hopeful that it'll be a good result. "And I think it will also be a game-changer for the whole climate discourse we're going through. "We've been going through this for 30 years, you know, so it'll shift. It'll shift the narrative, which is what we need to have." What consequences do you see from the ruling? "I think the advisory opinion will be very powerful within states to be used by people taking cases against their governments. "For every court, this will be something they can use. Whether it's a municipal-level court or a state-level court, they will be able to use this new ruling to force, try to make governments be more accountable and do more. "But also I think for countries like Vanuatu... we will be able to take this to help us make our arguments. "Legal clarity will be provided for a lot of the stuff we're arguing about for so long."
Japan Today
16 hours ago
- Japan Today
The UN's highest court will decide Wednesday on the climate obligations of countries
By MOLLY QUELL The UN's highest court is handing down a historic opinion on climate change Wednesday, a decision that could set a legal benchmark for action around the globe to the climate crisis. After years of lobbying by vulnerable island nations who fear they could disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice in 2023 for an advisory opinion, a non-binding but important basis for international obligations. A panel of 15 judges was tasked with answering two questions. First, what are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? Second, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment? 'The stakes could not be higher. The survival of my people and so many others is on the line,' Arnold Kiel Loughman, attorney general of the island nation of Vanuatu, told the court during a week of hearings in December. In the decade up to 2023, sea levels have risen by a global average of around 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches), with parts of the Pacific rising higher still. The world has also warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times because of the burning of fossil fuels. Vanuatu is one of a group of small states pushing for international legal intervention in the climate crisis but it affects many more island nations in the South Pacific. 'The agreements being made at an international level between states are not moving fast enough,' Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's minister for climate change, told The Associated Press. Any decision by The Hague-based court would be non-binding advice and unable to directly force wealthy nations into action to help struggling countries. Yet it would be more than just a powerful symbol, since it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits. 'What makes this case so important is that it addresses the past, present, and future of climate action. It's not just about future targets -- it also tackles historical responsibility, because we cannot solve the climate crisis without confronting its roots,' Joie Chowdhury, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, told AP. Activists could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the decision and states could return to the International Court of Justice to hold each other to account. And whatever the judges say will be used as the basis for other legal instruments, like investment agreements, Chowdhury said. The United States and Russia, both of whom are major petroleum-producing states, are staunchly opposed to the court mandating emissions reductions. Simply having the court issue an opinion is the latest in a series of legal victories for the small island nations. Earlier this month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that countries have a legal duty not only to avoid environmental harm but also to protect and restore ecosystems. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change. In 2019, the Netherlands' Supreme court handed down the first major legal win for climate activists when judges ruled that protection from the potentially devastating effects of climate change was a human right and that the government has a duty to protect its citizens. The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Times
2 days ago
- Japan Times
Trump's critical minerals obsession reignites deep-sea mining
The leader of one of the most aggressive seabed mining startups spent years invoking global warming to spark interest in extracting avocado-sized rocks rich in electric-vehicle battery metals from the bottom of the ocean. "We want to help the world transition away from fossil fuels with the smallest possible climate change and environmental impact,' Gerard Barron, the Australian chief executive officer of a company then known as DeepGreen, told a 2019 meeting of the United Nations-affiliated International Seabed Authority, which for a decade has been debating regulations to allow the mining of untouched, biodiverse deep-sea ecosystems in global waters. That's not Barron's pitch anymore. Climate was out and critical minerals were in during an appearance earlier this year before a congressional committee in Washington, DC. His firm, renamed as The Metals Company (TMC), would help "ensure the nation's energy security and industrial competitiveness for generations,' Barron said. "China is close behind.' Barron's new tack is working. In April, President Donald Trump issued an executive order expediting U.S. licensing of seabed mining, departing from international law to unleash what the administration called a "gold rush' to "counter China's growing influence.' The country is set to conduct ISA-sanctioned tests of two seabed mining machines in the Pacific over the next year. Kenny Bolster, Senior Scientist at Viridian Biometals, holds a sample of polymetallic nodules at the Viridian Biometals lab in Pasadena, California on June 25th. | Wolf Image / via Bloomberg China already dominates the critical minerals supply chain on land, and TMC had successfully tapped into the U.S. president's pursuit of China-free metals, expressed as a desire for dominion over Canada and Greenland. The global seabed, TMC repeatedly emphasized as it lobbied politicians and the White House, holds the planet's largest estimated reserves of minerals like cobalt and nickel in the form of black rocks called polymetallic nodules. These cover the Pacific Ocean floor by the billions. In an instant, Trump cleared the way for a race to the abyss to extract nodules, even though seabed mining technology remains under development and commercially unproven. At the ISA's annual meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, delegates on Monday decried Trump's move, with China's representative denouncing the U.S. for "unilateralist hegemonic acts' and attempting to "replace the global standards with U.S. standards.' Within days of Trump's order, Canadian-registered TMC's U.S. subsidiary filed the world's first application to mine the seabed in international waters, including an area it licenses from the ISA. An $85 million investment from a leading Korean metals processor soon followed. Nasdaq-listed TMC's shares, which have periodically languished below a dollar, hit a 52-week high of $8.19 on Thursday. A Silicon Valley startup called Impossible Metals, meanwhile, has applied for a license to explore and possibly mine nodules in U.S. waters off American Samoa, with an aim to raise $1 billion. Then on July 14, a top executive at U.S. defense giant Lockheed Martin told the Financial Times the company is in talks to give seabed miners access to international areas of the Pacific it licenses from the U.S. A Lockheed Martin spokesperson declined to confirm the report but said, "We appreciate the Trump administration's focus on ensuring reliable sources of critical minerals, including the ocean.' On Monday, delegates in Kingston ordered a report on ISA-licensed seabed miners at risk of violating their contracts with the body, a thinly veiled reference to TMC and other companies that might also seek to apply for U.S. licenses to mine in international waters. The Trump-triggered seabed mining boom faces significant hurdles, though. While TMC has told investors it expects to begin mining within a year of receiving a license, the technology to extract minerals from the seabed at depths of four kilometers could be years away from being deployed at scale. Its competitiveness with terrestrial mining is unknown, as is the economic viability of processing and refining seabed minerals amid seesawing metal prices and the growing market share of battery technologies not reliant on nodule metals. The U.S. lacks such metallurgical capacity, and it could take years to bring online in the few countries outside of China with the potential to refine nodule minerals. "Given the rapid evolution of batteries and other relevant technologies, there is great uncertainty about the future demand for critical minerals,' researchers at RAND wrote in a recent report. "A seabed mining industry, as a whole, faces considerable opposition from nations and organizations concerned about the potential negative environmental impacts.' The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Gerard Barron, chief executive of The Metals Company, at Times Square in New York on Sept. 17, 2021. | Ashley Gilbertson / The New York Times The countries that TMC relies on for seabed mining and processing technology are among the ISA's 169 member nations (plus the European Union) that oppose unilateral mining in international waters. Amid such backlash, a Japanese corporation, Pacific Metals Company, that planned to process TMC's nodules has now told investors that it would only "launch operations once the international rules are finalized.' "All those parties have a legal obligation to ensure that deep sea mining only takes place through the ISA,' says Samantha Robb, an Amsterdam-based attorney who specializes in ocean litigation. At the ISA, delegates convened behind closed doors on Friday to debate how to respond to TMC's plans. Barron, who once sat with the delegation of a tiny Pacific island nation that sponsors one of TMC's ISA contracts, has been absent this year but he's weighing in from afar. "Amid some noisy grandstanding coming out of Jamaica this month, this is a good reminder ... the U.S. has every right to pursue seafloor resources in international waters,' he wrote Wednesday on X. In a statement, TMC said it was "on firm legal and regulatory footing,' citing the sizable investments it's recently attracted. The company, however, cautioned investors in a May securities filing that a U.S. mining license wouldn't be recognized internationally, which could affect "logistics, processing and market access' for the seabed minerals TMC mines. 'It's going to take some time' More than a thousand miles southwest of Mexico on a September morning in 2022, a yellow, 80-metric-ton machine slowly rumbled across the seabed on tank-like treads, a plume of sediment billowing behind. During a two-month test for TMC, the 38-foot-long prototype vacuumed up 3,000 metric tons of nodules, sending them through a tube to a specialized surface vessel called the Hidden Gem. TMC hailed the trial as a success. Yet any commercial operations are a ways off, even if the U.S. grants TMC a mining license this year, given technological and legal obstacles that must be overcome. Matthew Lavichant, an intern at Viridian Biometals, plates wells in preparation for conducting a test on samples. | Wolf Image / via Bloomberg Allseas, a Dutch-owned, Swiss-registered offshore engineering and construction company, developed the technology, the world's only working prototype of a nodule mining system. The company supplies the apparatus to TMC and is its second-largest shareholder. To meet TMC's production targets, it must now build a much bigger version capable of harvesting nodules nearly around the clock under crushing pressure far from shore. A U.S. seabed mining license, however, would require TMC to deploy American-built and owned vessels. How the companies would comply with that mandate is unclear. Allseas said in a statement that it would take about two years to engineer the technical systems to support full-scale mining but it won't begin that work "until we are confident that all relevant regulatory conditions are met.' Allseas, which itself owns an ISA-licensed seabed mining company, has come under pressure from Dutch politicians and activists not to provide technology for unilateral mining. A laboratory ball mill used to pulverize polymetallic nodules. A bioreactor that contains polymetallic nodule bits and microbes. | Wolf Image / via Bloomberg TMC says it can't comment while its U.S. mining license application is under review. But in a May 14 securities filing the company said it's "evaluating U.S.-based vessel' options. However, the U.S. hasn't built a specialized seabed mining ship like the Hidden Gem, and only eight U.S. ocean-going bulk cargo carriers — large ships that can hold tens of thousands of pounds of nodules and transport them to shore — are in service. Seven of them are at or near the end of their lifespan, according to a 2024 U.S. Maritime Administration report. Impossible Metals uses a nodule collector, called Eureka, that's designed to hover above the ocean floor, its robotic claws selecting individual nodules that its artificial intelligence program determines aren't inhabited by marine organisms. (Scientists estimate that at least 30% to 40% of deep ocean life in the seabed targeted for mining live on nodules.) The company has delayed a planned trial of the Eureka in an ISA-licensed area of the Pacific until at least 2027 because the technology needs further refinement. And any mining wouldn't happen until at least the early 2030s. Impossible Metals' mining license application is for U.S. waters, not areas controlled by ISA. "That's far less controversial,' said CEO Oliver Gunasekara. "But obviously it's going to take some time.' What it takes to process a nodule In a small lab in Pasadena, California, scientists at an Impossible Metals spinoff called Viridian Biometals are trying to crack a problem about as challenging as pulling nodules out of the abyss: getting the metals out of the nodules. Nodule minerals precipitate out of seawater, forming layers around a piece of whale bone, a shark tooth or another small object at the rate of a few millimeters every million years. Unlike terrestrial minerals, where a couple of different metals might be found together in a deposit, nodules contain nickel, cobalt and copper particles scattered throughout every rock, mostly embedded in a matrix of manganese oxide. A laboratory ball mill used to pulverize polymetallic nodules. A bioreactor that contains polymetallic nodule bits and microbes. | Wolf Image / via Bloomberg "The treatment of materials that contain all four of these elements is not something that is commercially done today,' said Lyle Trytten, a veteran of the metals processing industry and president of Canada-based Trytten Consulting Services. Viridian scientists are tinkering with rock-breathing microbes that oxidize nodules to extract the most valuable metals. On a June afternoon, senior scientist Kenny Bolster opens up what looks like a freezer to reveal stainless steel bioreactors. As microbes inside oxide the manganese bits, they release nickel, cobalt and copper ions into a solution. "All this happens at ambient temperature and pressure, which saves an enormous amount of energy and doesn't produce any toxic waste,' says Viridian CEO Eric Macris. It'll take a few years to assess whether the technology is likely to be commercially feasible. "We love what Viridian is doing but we're just not sure if it will be mature enough when we need it,' says Impossible Metals' Gunasekara. If TMC, Impossible Metals and other companies mine the ocean floor under a U.S. license, then federal law requires the minerals to be processed and refined in America. Aside from Viridian's early efforts, the U.S. has no such capacity. A single facility in the U.S. capable of processing and refining nodules would cost several billion dollars, and could take up to a decade to reach full production, in part due to the complexities of handling an entirely new feedstock, according to Niels Verbaan, director of metallurgy technical services for Swiss testing and certification company SGS. The U.S. tax and spending bill enacted on July 4 allocates $5.5 billion to the Department of Defense for investments in critical minerals supply chains. But the U.S. has suffered a precipitous decline in metallurgical expertise since the 1980s when universities began to eliminate related degree programs. "We are decades behind now, and it's going to be very hard to catch up,' says Corby Anderson, a professor of metallurgical and materials engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. New immigration restrictions will also make it harder to recruit engineering talent from overseas. Samples of polymetallic nodules at the Viridian Biometals lab. Photographer: Alex Welsh/Bloomberg | Samples of polymetallic nodules at the Viridian Biometals lab. Photographer: Alex Welsh/Bloomberg Wolf Image China has invested heavily in the industry and is now in a position to retrofit existing facilities to process nodules or build dedicated new plants. The country processes 74% of the world's cobalt ore, according to a 2024 report from the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan think tank, while 97% of global nickel ore processing capacity lies outside of North America. China also maintains more than 80% of the capacity for refining those metals into advanced EV battery materials. There's few existing facilities outside of China capable of handling nodules, even if a U.S. seabed miner receives permission to use them and the owners are willing to revamp operations, according to industry executives. "These processing plants are not just sitting there idle begging for feed, they're all in use today,' says Trytten. The 'blue whale' in the room TMC has found one overseas metals processor willing to make the switch. Last year, Pacific Metals Company of Japan fed a 2,000-ton pile of nodules collected by TMC in 2022 into an electric-arc furnace to produce 500 tons of a material. In February, it was smelted into a nickel-cobalt-copper alloy. "These process plants are very expensive to build, they're very complicated, they're very risky,' says Jeffrey Donald, TMC's head of onshore development. "So by using an existing asset, existing operators, you're really taking that capital off the front end and you're really de-risking the technology and operations aspect.' The Maersk Launcher, a ship chartered in 2021 by The Metals Company to explore the potential of seabed mining, in Pacific waters near Rosarito, Mexico, June 7, 2021. | Tamir Kalifa / The New York Times In April, Pacific Metals announced it would transition from processing nickel ore to smelting nodules. But it doesn't expect full production to begin until 2029 at the earliest. TMC has also struck a deal with metals giant Korea Zinc, which is assessing the feasibility of refining nodules into battery materials, a process TMC has so far tested only in the lab. Whether nations would be enabling deep-sea mining through commercial relationships with U.S.-licensed seabed mining companies was the subject of whispered conversations among ISA delegates this month as they continued drafting mining regulations. Trump's move to mine in international waters and TMC's defiance of the ISA was, as French ambassador Olivier Guyonvarch alluded, "the blue whale' in the room. The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea prohibits unilateral mining by any country or corporation. It also requires the ISA to administer the global seabed for the benefit of humanity, with any royalties from mining divided among member states. The U.S. never ratified the treaty, though it had generally adhered to its provisions and still participates in ISA proceedings as an observer. Pressure is growing on member states to not supply technology to seabed mining companies the U.S. licenses, process their nodules or buy metals from them, as the treaty mandates ISA countries treat unilateral mining as illegitimate. Thirty-seven ISA countries support a moratorium on seabed mining until its environmental impacts are better understood. "The risks of bypassing the ISA's oversight are not only legal, they are also economic,' ISA Secretary-General Leticia Carvalho said in a statement. "Product lines derived from ventures that violate international law will carry reputational and legal concerns that increase the risk of the investment and can undermine its return.' Pacific Metals appears to have gotten the message. In a recent investor briefing, the company, which did not respond to requests for comment, emphasized that when it comes to nodule processing, it considers "international credibility to be a material issue.'
