Excerpt from asiapacificreport.nz
From 1949 to 1996 more than 300 nuclear devices were detonated in the Pacific. In the mid-1990s a generation of political leaders had the foresight, wisdom and courage to support a civil society initiative that led to an International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.
The resultant 1996 decision became a legal landmark.
Today we face another threat just as grave – the climate crisis. The risks and threats to peace and security posed by the climate emergency are as real and as avoidable as those posed by nuclear weapons.
And while here in New Zealand we’re only just seeing the first fires from the climate crisis today, the Pacific has been experiencing the impacts of climate destruction for decades.
Top of the agenda at this month’s Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Fiji was, of course, climate change. Specifically, states have been asked to support an initiative to take climate change directly to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
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