Latin America’s top court of human rights has decided for the first time that people have the right to a “healthy climate” without “dangerous” human interference, and has urged states to regulate fossil fuel extraction and exploration, in a landmark climate decision.
Culminating a two-year process that involved more than 260 submissions from governments, companies and local communities, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) on Thursday handed down an advisory opinion requested in 2023 by Chile and Colombia to clarify state obligations related to the climate crisis.
In a public hearing held at the court’s headquarters in the Costa Rican capital of San José, Judge Nancy Hernández read out the trailblazing decision on climate change, which for the first time in IACHR history stated a clear link between the “climate emergency” and human rights. The opinion also recognises that states and companies have an obligation to mitigate global warming and its impacts.
“The evidence we saw during the hearings and written submissions shows us that there is no more margin for indifference,” said Judge Hernández. “This is a contribution from law, but law alone is not enough. Success depends on what each one of us can do.”
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights holds jurisdiction over 20 Latin American and Caribbean states, where its advisory opinions are binding. But the strongly-worded climate ruling states that it is binding for all signatories of the Organization of American States, including the US and Canada.
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What does the advisory opinion say?
The landmark 230-page ruling mentions for the first time a subcategory of the human right to a healthy environment, by introducing a “right to a healthy climate”. Court judges said that this is defined as a climate system “free of anthropogenic interference dangerous” for nature and people.
According to the court ruling, states are also expected to cooperate to take actions to reduce emissions that are “as ambitious as possible”, and are obliged to prevent harm by carrying out environmental impact studies.
Recognising the significant climate impact of specific industries, the judges said states have a “minimum” duty to “supervise and control” exploration, extraction and processing of fossil fuels, as well as the cement and agriculture industries.
The advisory opinion also states that governments must establish “differentiated obligations” for companies with higher historical emissions, and impose stricter “duties on companies that carry out activities that generate greater GHG emissions”.
Sergio Diaz, legal director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said the opinion makes clear that governments in the Americas must take more ambitious measures against climate change, including addressing the main source of planet-heating emissions: fossil fuels.
“In this context, the adoption of new binding norms that clearly regulate the non-proliferation of fossil fuels is essential if states hope to comply with their human rights obligations,” he said in a statement.
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Luisa Gómez, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said the court decision was innovative – not only because of what it says, but also because there was a very extensive process behind it.
Aside from the 263 written submissions, the court judges carried out three site visits, holding one hearing in Barbados and two in Brazil, with the aim of reaching communities most affected by climate change. The court said it was “the advisory process with most participation in the tribunal’s history”.
“Historic” moment for climate litigation
CIEL’s Gómez hailed the court decision as “historic” and a “watershed moment”, due to the detailed new tools it creates for litigation and policy-making, and the potential for influencing other human rights courts.
Catalina Fernández, head of Multilateral Human Rights at Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Climate Home that the court decision sets a “more demanding standard” that can help governments and civil society push climate action forward.
“Each state has different realities and there is no unique recipe for everyone. But we hope that this decision can set a minimum standard,” Fernández said. “The court gives us a hand in this process but we still need political will from governments and civil society.”
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The advisory opinion also provides a clear set of guidelines for countries to bring to the COP30 summit in Belem later this year, said Liliana Ávila, director of human rights and environment at the nonprofit Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA).
Gómez, of CIEL, said that the court decision “makes life easier for everyone”, including states and communities wanting to bring forward more climate cases.
“There’s less room for impunity. It’s clear now where climate change comes from – and it’s clear that those responsible need to take measures,” said Gómez.
Other human rights courts have recognised that the failure of states to address climate change can breach human rights, with climate cases increasingly making it to the world’s highest courts, according to a 2025 report by the London School of Economics (LSE).
Last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Switzerland had breached the human rights of its citizens by not doing enough to cut planet-warming emissions.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is expected to deliver an advisory opinion on the legal obligation of states to limit climate change later this year. Experts said the ICJ ruling is expected to be influenced by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ decision.
The climate-vulnerable Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, which led the global push for an ICJ opinion, also participated in the IACHR proceedings by making a written submission.
Responding to the Americas ruling, Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change Adaptation, Energy and Environment, noted that all regional and international courts have an important role to play in advancing climate justice.
“Together, they can pave the way for a more integrated approach to international law that addresses the human rights dimensions and remedy the historical climate injustices that the Global South increasingly suffer from in the climate emergency,” he said in a statement.
The post Top Latin American court upholds right to “healthy climate”, urges fossil fuel control appeared first on Climate Home News.
Top Latin American court upholds right to “healthy climate”, urges fossil fuel control
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Members of a congressional subcommittee this week questioned utility leaders and state officials about their knowledge of preexisting problems with the sewage line that collapsed on Jan. 19 near the Potomac River.
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For migrant workers trapped onboard Chinese distant water fishing fleets, cutting the fins off sharks as they writhe violently on rusted decks in the Indian Ocean isn’t accidental. It’s an intentional and lucrative act that marks the start of a bloody half-a-billion-dollar offshore supply chain, tacitly supported by Beijing yet covertly concealed from port inspectors globally.
New data on international climate finance for 2023 and 2024 suggests that wealthy countries are highly unlikely to have met their pledge to double funding for adaptation in developing nations to around $40 billion a year by 2025 amid cuts to their overseas aid budgets.
At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, all countries agreed to “urge” developed nations to at least double their funding for adaptation in developing countries from 2019 levels of around $20 billion by 2025. Funding for adaptation has lagged behind money to help reduce emissions and remains the dark spot even as the data showed overall climate finance rose to a record $136.7 billion in 2024.
A United Nations Environment Programme report warned last year that wealthy nations were likely to miss the adaptation finance target and the data released on Thursday by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that in 2024 adaptation finance was just under $35 billion.
The OECD, an intergovernmental policy forum for wealthy countries, said the increase between 2022 and 2024 was “modest”, adding that meeting the doubling target would require “strong growth” of close to 20% in 2025.
More cuts likely
The OECD’s figures do not go up to 2025, but several nations announced cuts to climate finance last year. The most notable was the abandonment of US pledges to international climate funds by the new Trump administration but the UK, France, Germany and other wealthy European countries also pared back their contributions.
Joe Thwaites, international finance director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said developed countries were “not on track” to meet the adaptation funding goal.
Power Shift Africa director Mohamed Adow said adaptation finance is needed to expand flood defences, drought-resistant crops, early warning systems and resilient health services as the world warms, bringing more extreme weather and rising seas. “When that money fails to arrive, people lose homes, harvests and livelihoods – and in the worst cases, their lives,” he warned.
Imane Saidi, a senior researcher at the North Africa-based Imal Initiative, called the $35 billion in adaptation finance in 2024 “a drop in the ocean”, considering that the United Nations estimates the annual adaptation needs of developing countries at between $215 billion and $387 billion.
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If confirmed, a failure to meet the goal is likely to further strain relations between developed and developing countries within the UN climate process. A previous pledge to provide $100 billion a year of total climate finance by 2020 was only met two years late, a failure labelled “dismal” by the UAE’s COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber and many other Global South diplomats.
Missing that goal would also raise doubts about donor governments’ commitment to meeting their new post-2025 adaptation finance goal. At COP30 last year, governments agreed to urge developed countries to triple adaptation finance – without defining the baseline – by 2035.
African and other developing countries have pointed to lack of funding as a key flaw in ongoing attempts to set indicators to measure progress on adapting to climate change.
Speaking to climate ministers from around the world in Copenhagen on Wednesday, Turkish COP31 President Murat Kurum stressed the importance of climate finance. “It is easy to say we support global climate action,” he said, “but promises must be kept.”
He said the COP31 Presidency will use the new Global Implementation Accelerator and recommendations in the Baku-to-Belem roadmap, published last year, to scale up climate finance – and will hold donors accountable for their collective finance goals.
He noted that developed countries should this year submit their first reports showing how they will deliver their “fair share” of the new broader finance goal set at COP29 in 2024, to deliver $300 billion a year in climate finance by 2035. They are due to report on this once every two years.
Broader climate finance
The OECD data shows that the overall amount of climate finance – including funding for emissions cuts – provided by developed countries grew fast in 2023 before declining in 2024. In contrast, the amount of private finance developed countries say they “mobilised” increased in both 2023 and 2024, pushing the top-line figure to a record high.
While the OECD does not say which countries provided what amounts, data from the ODI Global think-tank suggests that the 2024 cuts to bilateral climate finance were spread broadly among wealthy nations.
Thwaites of NRDC welcomed the fact that overall climate finance provided and mobilised by developed countries exceeded $130 billion in both 2023 and 2024. He said that this was “well above earlier projections” and “shows that when rich countries work together, they can over-achieve on climate finance goals”.
But Sehr Raheja, programme officer at the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said these figures are “modest” when set against the new $300-billion goal.
“While the headline total figure of climate finance remains alright,” she said, “declining bilateral climate spending raises important questions about the predictability of high-quality, concessional public finance, which has consistently been a key demand of the Global South.”
She also lamented that loans continue to dominate public climate finance and that mobilised private finance is concentrated in middle-income countries and on emissions-reduction measures rather than adaptation projects. “Private capital continues to follow bankability rather than climate vulnerability or need,” she added.
Ritu Bharadwaj, climate finance and resilience researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development, said the figures painted an outdated picture as climate finance has since declined as rich countries shrink their overseas aid budgets and increase spending on defence.
Last month, the OECD published figures showing that international aid – which includes climate finance – fell by nearly a quarter in 2025. The US was responsible for three-quarters of this decline. The OECD projects a further decline in 2026.
With Thursday’s climate finance report, the OECD is “publishing a victory lap for 2023 and 2024 at almost the same moment its own aid statistics show the funding base eroding underneath it,” Bharadwaj said.
The post New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance appeared first on Climate Home News.
New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance
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