Photo credit: AP Photo/Joshua A. Bicket via Guardian.co.tt Excerpt from guardian.co.tt
The recent advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on states’ legal obligations to address climate change is shaping conversations at COP30, according to Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) negotiator Carlon Mendoza.
Mendoza, who serves as Climate Policy Advisor with Climate Analytics Caribbean, said the ICJ opinion has begun influencing how some countries approach negotiations under the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. “What we’ve seen so far is that some parties have started citing or using language from the ICJ opinion,” he said.
The ICJ’s advisory opinion, issued in July 2025, reaffirmed that limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius is not only a moral imperative but now a legal benchmark under international law.