ICJ to weigh in on climate duty

[Anchor]

Tonight, the International Court of Justice will provide its opinion on who is responsible for the climate crisis and what legal obligations each country has.

This opinion is expected to set the standards for climate policies in the international community and for handling lawsuits.

Continuing with reporter Lee Hwa-jin from Paris.

[Report]

The island nation of Tuvalu in the South Pacific.

Currently, it has a long and narrow territory that stretches across the sea, but it originally had a much larger area.

Due to rising sea levels caused by climate change, the ocean has eroded more than 15 cm of land over the past 30 years.

Half of the citizens whose land has been encroached upon have applied to immigrate to nearby Australia.

[Grace Malie/Tuvalu Climate Activist: "Our identity to our land, our identity as Tuvaluans, and the future of our children and our descendants. And that's very concerning."]

Pacific nations, including Tuvalu, whose existence is threatened, have held the international community accountable at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2023.

And tonight, after two years of deliberation, the first advisory opinion will be announced.

It will provide an official legal interpretation regarding the legal obligations of the international community, the responsibility for compensation to affected countries, and whether the obligation to protect future generations under international law is recognized.

This could serve as a 'standard' for future climate lawsuits and compensation claims between countries.

[Ralph Regenvanu/Vanuatu Minister of Climate Change: "It will be a 'game changer' for this whole climate discourse we are going through. We've been going through for 30 years."]

As the world is both responsible for and a victim of climate change, the direction of climate policy will be rewritten depending on what international standards emerge today.

This is Lee Hwa-jin from KBS News in Paris.