Climate Change

China Climate Change Development Energy Sustainability

Nature Abhors A Vacuum: The Next Energy Transition and the Strategic Costs of U.S. Political Paralysis

The world’s next energy transition is here, and China leads the way. The term “energy transition” refers to a significant structural change in how energy is produced and consumed in society. With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution the world moved from burning wood to burning coal, and as technology and engines improved, to gas and oil. Energy transitions are nothing new. What makes the next one distinct is its departure from fossil fuels, instead moving towards renewable energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal, or nuclear energy. Leading the global renewable energy market relies on the technological prowess of a country and how fast it can create cheap and efficient energy sources. In this scenario, access to natural resources and energy imports start to matter less.

Wind and solar supplied a record 26% of China’s electricity in April 2025, and China has twice as much wind and solar capacity under construction than the rest of the world combined. China is the top electric vehicle seller in the world, and is projected to remain at the top. In 2020, President Xi Jinping said that China will “aim to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.” This energy shift is more than an environmental push. China has the power to move markets, and the expansion of renewables ultimately serves a deeper strategic purpose. At its core, the transition is driven by a desire to eliminate dependence on foreign fuels and consolidate geopolitical autonomy and influence.

The United States is falling behind, as renewable energy has increasingly become a politically polarized issue. Throughout President Trump’s second term, renewable energy has declined in general popularity and the issue has polarized Democrats and Republicans even further. Trump also has a history of rolling back renewable energy reforms. He recently ended tax incentives for wind and solar projects, and withdrew $13 billion in funding pledged to wind, solar, batteries, and EVs.

This political shift is in stark contrast to current US energy demand. With the explosion in AI technology development, the demand for AI data centers is growing faster than current energy infrastructure can support. Data centers consumed 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, which is 4% of the country’s total electricity consumption. This demand is expected to triple by 2030, and the main challenge for building data center infrastructure is power and grid capacity. Industry experts have likened every new AI data center project to adding a new city to the power grid. The U.S. needs more energy any way it can get it. And thanks to economies of scale, where increasing production output decreases the average cost per unit, renewable energy is cheaper today than it ever has been.

The AI data center boom is a microcosm of how the next energy transition—from fossil fuels to renewable energy—can help the U.S. profit from this exponential demand for energy. Global energy policy expert Jason Bordoff says that the next energy transition “is going to be one of the greatest economic opportunities since the Industrial Revolution.” Why? Renewable energy is a fast growing area of innovation and investment, and energy is the backbone of industry. “In 2022, investments in renewables reached a record high of $1.3 trillion, a 70% increase from the pre-pandemic levels of 2019.” This surge in investment reflects a recognition that future economic growth will depend on who can produce the most energy, the fastest, and at the lowest cost. As demand accelerates, the energy transition becomes not just an environmental shift, but an economically competitive one.

Increasing energy supply through fossil fuels or renewables is unequivocally advantageous for a country. And, more importantly, renewable energy has fewer geopolitical strings attached than fossil fuels. China is the world’s largest importer of crude oil. Some economists argue that if China continues to bolster its renewable energy capacity, it might be able to phase out oil imports. This would enable it to be more energy self-sufficient—and a self-sufficient country freer of geopolitical tensions, global market prices, and trade wars has much more power. Yet in the United States, Democratic and Republican party woes distract from the real issues at hand. While Democrats often frame renewable energy primarily as a climate issue and Republicans push to preserve fossil fuel dominance, long-term energy security falls through the cracks. This divide slows potential infrastructure development, and leaves the U.S. less prepared to meet surging energy demand. Political paralysis has its costs. Renewable energy is not just a “clean planet” argument— it is an argument about which country will be the next world power.

This battle for geopolitical dominance took center stage at COP30, the 30th UN Climate Change Conference, which was held in November 2025. The United States pulled out of the conference for the first time in thirty years. Historically, the U.S. has played a dominating role in the conference. But Washington’s job as leader fell to China this year, a country usually sidelined. This vacuum of power means that China gets to pull the strings on climate diplomacy, built on top of their already robust renewable energy industry.

China not only has a stronghold in renewable energy and climate diplomacy. It also has strong and invaluable ties to developing countries and emerging renewable energy markets in a way the U.S. does not, according to the New York Times. Many emerging, energy-hungry economies are rapidly adopting renewable energy, helped by a surge of inexpensive Chinese solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and green-tech investment. They also report that China is investing billions of dollars building factories in countries like Vietnam and Brazil to produce solar panels and EVs. This shift marks a new center of gravity in global climate politics, with developing countries increasingly steering the transition.

It is clear that China’s accelerating dominance in renewable energy, combined with the U.S. political deadlock, demonstrates a potential shift in global power. As emerging economies embrace cheap Chinese green technology, China shapes the next era of energy and diplomacy while Washington steps back. The United States risks forfeiting not only economic gains but also geopolitical influence if it continues to sideline renewable energy as a partisan issue. As a student at UCLA, I see the energy transition taking shape in front of my own eyes: electric vehicles line campus parking lots, and many would argue that the Tesla is California’s most ubiquitous car. Yet the most affordable EV’s on the global market, many of them Chinese made, are nowhere to be found in the U.S. This contrast is hard to ignore: innovation is happening, demand is visible, but leadership is occurring elsewhere. Energy transitions have always redefined global leaders. Today’s transition is no different: the nation that controls the world’s clean energy future will command its economic and political landscape. Right now, that nation is not the United States.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

February 9, 2026 0 comment

Climate Change Development Economics Energy Environmental Change Featured Global Health International Development Sustainability

The Dark Side of Going Green

written by Chaitanya Kishore

Goal 13 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals calls for action against climate change through cutting greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the use of renewable energy sources. But, in order to make renewable energy sources—such as wind, solar, or geothermal power—viable for widespread use, rechargeable batteries are needed to store the energy produced. Lithium-ion batteries are the most commonly used rechargeable because of their high energy density, low maintenance, and high power delivery. Two of the most used materials in the production of lithium-ion batteries are lithium and cobalt. Despite mining for minerals like lithium and cobalt having lower carbon emissions than burning fossil fuels, mining often leads to pollution and environmental degradation.

The push towards renewable energy sources as the solution to climate change hides the darker side of resource extraction needed to produce this technology. In an effort to avert the climate change crisis through technology developed from lithium-ion batteries, a new environmental crisis may be starting from the mining needed to produce them. The mining needed to produce lithium-ion batteries primarily occurs in developing countries where the economic benefits of mining are often put before the environmental harms. Two areas that reflect this ongoing environmental and social crisis resulting from lithium and cobalt mining are the Atacama Desert in Chile and Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Chile is the second largest producer of lithium in the world, behind only Australia, and one of the world’s biggest deposits of lithium is located under the salt flats in Chile’s Atacama Desert. To mine the lithium below the desert, lithium brine is mixed with groundwater and brought to the surface. This mixture is left to evaporate to then be collected and used in lithium batteries. The extraction of groundwater for the mining process has led to a drought in the region and many wetlands in the area have dried up as well.

The area surrounding the Atacama Desert, which is home to many indigenous communities, have been impacted by the water shortages as a direct result of lithium mining. In an interview about lithium mining with BBC, Faviola Gonzalez, a biologist living in an indigenous community in the Atacama Desert, said, “Who are the electric cars going to be for? Europeans, Americans, not us. Our carbon footprint is much smaller. But it’s our water that’s being taken. Our sacred birds that are disappearing.” Indigenous communities like the Colla and Lickanantay have seen the rivers they get their water from dry up. These communities now rely on tankers to bring water to them and are powerless in doing more to stop the mining since mining companies have control over the land and water resources.

Despite the harmful damage done to communities and resources surrounding the Atacama Desert, the Chilean government and mining companies have planned to increase lithium mining in response to increasing demands for lithium batteries. The government launched a National Lithium Strategy to increase production and expand private investment in lithium mining in 2023. There have also been talks by government officials to increase lithium mining by up to 70%. Additionally, the Chilean state-run mining company launched a partnership with a private Chilean mining company, Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SQM), for a 30 year lithium mining partnership starting in 2031. SQM has announced plans to reduce water use by 60% when it begins mining in 2031. However, it may be too late to implement these changes to protect the surrounding environment due to already widespread drought conditions and dried up wetlands.

Similarly, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) produces nearly 70% of the world’s cobalt, having the highest concentration of cobalt deposits in the world. Cobalt mining, as well as copper mining, has led to toxic mining runoff—polluting rivers that provide water to many of the DRC’s largest cities. While speaking about the stream near his home with Kuwait Times, Heritier Maloba, resident of Lubumbashi in the DRC, said, “In this stream, the fish vanished long ago, killed by acids and waste from the mines.” The water now poisons nearby communities as the high concentrations of metals and acids in the polluted water have led to respiratory illnesses, birth defects, and metabolic disorders. The runoff is also poisoning the land around the mines and has been connected to the killing of crops and worms which are indicators of soil health. Cobalt mining has also been threatening forests in the DRC, which serve as carbon sinks. Mining in the DRC specifically has led to a decrease in over 13,000 hectares of forest since 2001.

The people of the DRC have been exploited for decades to mine the valuable minerals located in the country. Following the colonization of the area that is now the DRC by King Leopold II in 1876, the Belgians set up a system of resource extraction while forcing the people that lived there to work on plantations and mines through brutal violence. Minerals including cobalt from the DRC were used to fuel the Industrial Revolution in Europe and to produce the weapons used in the World Wars, while workers who mined them worked under inhumane conditions. This exploitation continues today because of the increasing demand for cobalt.

The majority of the cobalt mines in the DRC are no longer locally controlled due to a deal signed in 2009 by then-President Joseph Kabila with the Chinese government, where the DRC gave China mining rights for infrastructure funding. Now, 15 out of the 19 largest cobalt and copper mines in the DRC are owned by Chinese companies, meaning much of the economic wealth generated by these mines is not going back to the local communities being directly harmed by them. Although China does provide infrastructure funding to the DRC in exchange for mining rights, the DRC ranked 180th out of 193 countries on the Human Development Index. Chinese mining companies have also been accused of using mining revenue to meddle in DRC elections and continue to perpetuate poor working conditions in cobalt mines.

We must recognize that many of us living in the Global North are far removed from the devastating environmental and human consequences of the mining required to make the products we use on a daily basis, beyond just renewable energy. Can you imagine going through your day without using your phone and laptop or not using an electric scooter or electric vehicle to get around? I know I use my phone and laptop regularly throughout the day and many students at UCLA use their electric scooters to commute to class. With this in mind, we must recognize our demand for such products is contributing to the accelerating environmental degradation in many areas of the world. The negative effects of mining for minerals used in the production of lithium-ion batteries is a problem that is not going away any time soon.

It must be also recognized that the solution to climate change can’t be just switching from burning fossil fuels to mining nonrenewable minerals. Communities living near the mines have no say in stopping the mining process since the mines are often owned by the government or by private mining companies. Change needs to be made by governments and the private sector to prevent any further irreversible damage to human health, natural resources, and biodiversity. While one solution could be improving the mining technology used to be less destructive, the more permanent solution may be to find more sustainable, less resource intensive rechargeable batteries that can replace lithium-ion batteries. One sustainable alternative is the sodium-ion battery, which uses sodium instead of lithium, since sodium can be more easily obtained from sources such as seawater.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

January 4, 2026 0 comment

Climate Change Environmental Change Featured Human Rights Humanitarian Aid Middle East United Nations

The Inefficacy of COP 29

written by Lucine Ekizian

The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The UNFCCC aims to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, and COP annually brings together the 198 parties to the Convention to assess the current international state of climate change, including analyzing financial assistance to countries that face difficulties in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Past conferences have laid the groundwork for how we understand and enforce climate change regulations today. COP 21 established the Paris Agreement in 2015, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, assess the programs that work toward this goal, and provide financing to developing countries combating climate change. COP 26 created the Glasgow Climate Pact 2021, which builds upon the Paris Agreement and calls for countries to analyze their Nationally Determined Contributions to emission levels. It also calls on developed states to provide $10 billion to developing states to provide the necessary financing for them to mitigate climate change risks.

However, COP 29 – the most recent conference – left questions unanswered for the future of climate change mitigation. The conference was held in Baku, Azerbaijan—a decision protested by the international community for both Azerbaijan’s human rights violations in the Artsakh region of Armenia and significant contributions to greenhouse gas emissions.

Under a false pretext of environmental concerns, Azerbaijan illegally blocked the Lachin Corridor checkpoint—a pathway connecting Artsakh to Armenia—and stopped the transportation of humanitarian aid to civilian populations. This followed the largest attack on Armenia by Azerbaijan since the beginning of the Artsakh conflict in September 2022. This attack resulted in the militarization of Armenia’s borders and increased forced emigration and aimed to ethnically cleanse Armenians from Artsakh and its surroundings.

Azerbaijani officials told the International Crisis Group that the checkpoint was set up to “observe, control and influence” over Artsakh and its surroundings. Azerbaijan’s illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor under the pretense of eco-activism presents an irony in Azerbaijan hosting COP 29.

Fridays for Future, an international movement founded by climate activist Greta Thunberg, previously condemned COP 29 being held in Azerbaijan. The organization called for the release of all prisoners of war—coining the hashtag #FreeArmenianHostages—and advocated for the rights of indigenous Armenians to remain in Artsakh.

Amnesty International also called on EU leaders to raise awareness of human rights violations through a joint letter in November 2024, highlighting Azerbaijan’s violations against independent journalists and civil society representatives. It also stated that leaders attending the conference should aim to secure the release of independent journalists and representatives and“stress in interactions with the Azerbaijani government that robust civil society participation is essential for effective climate action.”

Azerbaijan also was an unfit host for the conference due to its contributions to climate change. Prior to COP 29, reports indicated that Azerbaijan is anticipating an expansion of fossil gas production. The State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has appointed 97% of its capital expenditure to ventures in oil and gas projects. A report from the Climate Action Tracker deemed Azerbaijan’s climate action as “critically insufficient,” and cited that Azerbaijan has “actually weakened its climate target in contradiction of the requirement of the Paris Agreement’s Article.”

The key goals of the November conference were “securing a new goal on climate finance, ensuring every country has the means to take much stronger climate action, slashing greenhouse gas emissions and building resilient communities.” The conference also aimed to analyze national climate plans, which Climate Action tracked, saying the host country is “weakening its updated NDC, removing its 2030 target altogether, and with its pledge to markedly increase fossil fuel production and consequently increase methane emissions.”

The Group of 77 (G77), the largest intergovernmental organization of developing states in the UN, promotes collective economic interests. At COP 29, negotiations on the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance stretched into the final hours of the conference. The G77 demanded $1.3 trillion from historic emitters to rebuild from the effects of those states, such as the U.S. and EU countries. The final deal only states that those states should receive $300 billion annual, and $1.3 trillion should just be a target. According to the Guardian, hours before COP 29 concluded, delegates from the U.S., Colombia, and multiple African states huddled over documents and struck a last-minute deal to keep the $1.3 trillion as a target.

“Without access to high-quality, stable financing, developing countries are unable to take measures to address the climate crisis—a crisis they are not responsible for,” said Environmental Investigation Agency Climate Campaigner Jack Corscadden.

According to a press release from Kick Big Polluters Out, there were at least 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists who were granted access to COP 29. The press release stated that fossil fuel lobbyists received more passes to COP 29 than all the delegates combined from the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations. COP 29 failed to reach an agreement on fossil fuel production—something that is vital to Azerbaijan’s economy and represented at the conference. The last agreed-upon language regarding fossil fuels at a COP was the decision to “transition away” from fossil fuels, according to the Council of Foreign Affairs.

COP 30 will be held in Brazil, and must address the open-ended questions regarding fossil fuel mitigation. In a letter to the parties, President-designate André Aranha Corrêa do Lago called for working with the COP 29 Presidency to “scale climate finance for developing countries to USD 1.3 trillion annually,” and said the two Presidencies will “produce a report on these efforts by COP 30.”

By undercutting developing countries affected by historical emitters and failing to reach a new agreement on fossil fuel mitigation, it is evident that the economy and intentions of a host state of COP directly correlate to the effectiveness of the conference. The work is cut out for future COPs, but to ensure a fruitful conference, the UN must consider the politics of host countries.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

May 19, 2025 328 comments

AI Climate Change Environmental Change South America

Impacts of ChatGPT on the Lithium Triangle as Mining Efforts Scale Up

written by Georgiana Morris

One of the largest breakthroughs of the 21st century has been in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly the creation of ChatGPT. Widely known for its intuitive language processing and free, public access to an unlimited amount of information, ChatGPT has become ingrained into daily life, and as it continues to evolve and expand its influence, we must be aware of not just what it offers us but what it also demands from others. Injustices caused indirectly by ChatGPT have long harmed local indigenous and rural communities, meaning that AI’s explosive growth threatens to worsen already precarious conditions. To recognize the impacts of ChatGPT on these communities, there are two essential components to understand first: the resource-intensive nature of both ChatGPT and lithium mining.

Revolutionary in its making, Large Language Models (LLM) like ChatGPT undergo a series of machine learning training stages to allow consumers access to a seemingly unlimited supply of information. During its unsupervised training phase, where the machine is given access to a large corpus of text, LLMs learn general features and patterns of natural language. This method is known as a transformer-based neural network and includes processing web sources, books, online datasets, and human-generated data. Training these models demands huge amounts of energy, as data centers rely heavily on water and cooling systems, causing significant environmental damage. The Washington Post found that for every 100-word email generated by an AI chatbot, about 1 bottle of water is wasted. Think of the water bill for that!

Now that we understand ChatGPT and its cost of running, let’s look at the cost of creation: lithium extraction. Lithium is one of many “critical minerals”, metals essential for battery technologies like electric vehicles (EVs), renewable energies (REs), and data centers. The global supply chain of lithium is vast, interconnected, and vulnerable. Factors like geographic concentration of extraction and the associated “arms race” to control these areas mean that local communities are often overlooked and exploited. This trend was exacerbated by Donald Trump in 2017, when he signed an executive order expanding the concept of critical mineral security to include the entire supply chain, in an effort to assert US influence and dominance in controlling global resources. This had stark consequences, as the influx of countries competing to control these resources further deteriorated any regard for localized impact.

In one such location, the Lithium Triangle, injustices for indigenous communities are extremely evident, particularly around the mining sites. Nestled between the borders of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, this area of the Andes hosts more than 75% of the world’s lithium reserves and is essential to the creation and maintenance of AI. However, many of these deposits are located on the ancestral lands of indigenous communities, who have consistently faced threatened ecosystems from lithium mining. Raw lithium is primarily extracted by drilling into subsurface fluids, known as brines, and pumping the liquid into pools to evaporate the water, leaving behind the lithium. This process is highly energy-intensive and causes immense socio-environmental costs, such as water depletion, ecosystem destruction, indigenous displacement, and economic inequity. These costly tendencies are labeled green extractivism, a term reminiscent of past extractivist colonial institutions, as corporations override sustainability concerns through lobbying. Often, local governments ease indigenous land rights and restrict the ability to protest in favor of profits. Historically, the indigenous communities hosting the mining industries have been disproportionately impacted, known as green sacrificial zones (GSZ), areas prone to chemical pollution from industries. Lithium mining produces these GSZs, where private enterprises shift the economic and environmental costs of production to neighboring communities, known as frontline communities, who suffer directly. For example, in the Puna Plateau in Argentina, the indigenous frontline community relies on underground water adjacent to the salt flats, which is continuously depleted by mining efforts in that region. Extractivist tendencies, as observed from the European conquest of Africa in the 1800s, have preyed on and burdened these communities with impossible impacts, without installing proper infrastructure to involve community leaders in mining processes.

The ever-increasing rise of language models has accelerated the demand for lithium batteries to power data centers. This means that global demand for lithium has increased, scaling up mining efforts despite the vulnerable communities immediately affected. The just transition is built on fossil fuels, as all energy transitions before it built upon their energy predecessors. So even while lithium is used in EVs and other RE strategies, its cost is rooted in inequality. Therefore, as OpenAI products are being scaled up to meet the high demand for advancements in the field, and more data centers are built to supply the demand, more lithium-ion batteries are created within the already vulnerable global market, further damaging the frontline communities of the mining industry.

Lithium mining has serious environmental and economic issues already prevalent in many green sacrificial zones abutting mining areas. Ratifying human rights principles like Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) helps enshrine accountability from tech companies as they involve local indigenous communities in mining processes and share in economic benefits. Stricter environmental and labor regulations in lithium mining are integral to indigenous community rights protection as well as investment in alternative battery chemistries and locally-led RE initiatives or mining cooperatives. We must ask ourselves: Are we willing to pay the cost of our queries, or let others bear the burden in their quarries?

May 18, 2025 302 comments

China Climate Change Donald Trump

The Politics of Climate Change: The Looming Power Shift from the U.S. to China

written by Jade Faircloth

The ferocious wildfires that scourged Los Angeles took the lives and homes of numerous neighborhoods, affecting both the poor and the wealthy. Firefighters were forced to watch helplessly as house after house burned when the fire hydrants ran dry. In response, then President-elect Donald Trump took to social media to blast Governor Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden for allegedly turning off water in the fire hydrants. This led to mass confusion and turned a terrible natural disaster into a heavily politicized blaming game. However, preventing this outcome for Los Angeles required more than just local politics and institutional preparedness. A rational first step would be to understand and accept the science behind the issue, which is a prerequisite for reducing the likelihood of these crises.

This is just one instance of the politicization and mayhem as a result of President Trump’s climate denialism. In January 2025, President Trump announced the United States’ formal withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. In his “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements” Executive Order, President Trump began the process of withdrawing the United States from any agreement made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). President Trump’s executive order also limits the United States’ financial contribution to aid other countries in regard to climate change.

Furthermore, if President Trump were to completely abandon the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), this would block the United States out of any future climate negotiations. This would also eliminate any influence the United States has in shaping international climate policy and would eliminate any efforts to hold major emitters, such as China, accountable. Since the UNFCCC serves as the basis of global climate cooperation and the international framework that aims to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, this would create a domino effect in which other nations abandon their climate responsibilities too, derailing any collective progress.

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change that was signed in November 2016. This binding agreement was the first treaty to bring together nations to combat climate change. Under this agreement, countries communicate the actions they will take to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. This legally binding accountability ensures countries follow their commitments and holds financial provisions for developing countries. Its main goal is to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and to keep the global temperature rise well below 2°C. However, in recent years, world leaders have emphasized the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century.

President Obama led an urgent and coordinated effort to urge nations to join the Paris Agreement as soon as possible. The U.S. soon became a global leader in climate policy and ushered into an era of global collaboration to tackle climate challenges. This agreement created a booming clean energy industry in the United States and left America with its lowest carbon pollution in two decades and employed more than three million Americans.

However, since then, the narrative in the United States around climate change has been largely reduced to two polarizing sides: climate deniers and climate alarmists. Notably, climate change has been absent from President Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign with topics such as immigration, the economy and democracy taking precedence. In fact, global warming was not brought up until the final question of the September presidential debate.

As the United States steps down as an international leader, some argue that China should step up and lead the fight against climate change. Through its investments in clean energy technology, it can “lead by example.” As the world’s largest emitter, China should introduce a new NDC that is aimed at significantly reducing its pollution levels. This would not only demonstrate its commitment to sustainability but also encourage other nations to adopt more ambitious climate targets. Given the strong link between development and sustainability, such an initiative would position China as a leader in the global climate agenda. China already invests heavily in developing nations, and while it has not explicitly stated whether these investments will align with climate change goals, it has recognized the importance of developing countries supporting one another regarding climate change.

China would likely be interested in this opportunity as it aligns with its long-standing ambition to expand its political and economic influence, particularly in countering U.S. dominance–a goal it has pursued since the 20th century. Such a move would have significant geopolitical ramifications, potentially shifting the balance of power between the two superpowers. As China and the United States remain in close competition, taking the lead in climate change initiatives could provide China with the strategic advantage needed to surpass the U.S. economically and mark the end of American global supremacy, ushering in a new era of influence.

However, this leaves massive implications for the future of the international climate effort to combat climate change. As the United States was the leader in the climate change effort, many are unsure what will come next. It is certain that this marks a return to U.S. isolationism, at the very moment when global cooperation is most needed, and a possible rise in Chinese dominance. If China fills this gap, it would be a double-edged sword. On one hand, increased funding and commitment to climate change could drive real progress. On the other hand, China’s approach to international leadership differs from the U.S., as its investments often come with political strings attached. Thus, climate action could become another avenue for expanding China’s influence, potentially sidelining Western democratic norms in global governance.

February 24, 2025 306 comments

Image taken by Fred Murphy, under CC License. https://www.fredmurphy.com/photos/riseclimate18/#/view/ID7615561.

Climate Change Human Rights International Law

Taking to the Courts: the International Court of Justice and Climate Change

written by Arya Goyal

The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP27, is yet another attempt by world leaders to tackle the issue of climate change. The yearly meeting will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and will be attended by approximately 200 countries.

The question remains whether this conference will result in any constructive change with regard to climate change, or will it be another greenwashing event? Indeed, despite the disastrous effects of climate change, little progress has been achieved in tackling it on an international scale. Although several treaties and summits exist, citizens and civil society organizations are now turning to courts to combat this issue.

One such example is found with the pacific nation of Vanuatu which is leading the charge in obtaining legal advice from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on protections needed due to the detrimental effects of climate change. It is important to assess the extent to which the benefits of an advisory opinion by the ICJ on this matter outweigh the risks. This can be done by looking at the ICJ’s relationship with national courts, previous advisory opinions by the ICJ, and the focus of the question which is presented to the ICJ. Indeed, this question presented to the ICJ should emphasize the link between climate change and its effect on human rights.

ICJ—the principal legal organ of the United Nations— is seen as “first among equals” within the international judicial system, rendering its judgments to have “great legal weight and moral authority.” Its advisory opinion plays an important role in both setting precedents for national courts and inspiring political mobilization among the general populace. Regarding the former, an opinion clarifying the responsibility of states under international law would give national and regional courts administering climate change cases against corporations and governments a foundation to rely on.

This is especially pivotal given the recent increase in climate change litigation cases brought forth by private citizens and NGOs who are becoming increasingly disillusioned with their governments. As of July 2020, there have been approximately 1550 cases filed in 39 countries. Although 77% of the cases were filed in the US, there is an upward trend of cases filed in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Thus, a helpful advisory opinion by the ICJ could result in initiating an “international public consciousness” on the urgency of climate change and could prompt the public to act.

It is important to keep in mind that the ICJ does not possess any mechanism for the enforcement of its rulings, and rather relies on states. This drawback, however, does not affect this case as the intention of the advisory opinion is not to place blame on a certain state but rather provide non-binding legal advice. In fact, this is in line with the Paris Agreement which is both “non-adversarial and non-punitive,” allowing states to set their own goals through the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). Moreover, differing from the contentious opinion case which only applies to states involved in the dispute, an advisory opinion allows inputs from all state parties, capturing collective state interests.

Although the ICJ has not taken on a climate change case before, it does have experience with environment-related cases underscoring its ability to handle complex scientific information. Indeed, the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons advisory opinion of 1996 was a monumental case of international law where the ICJ ruled that there was no law prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons as long as it complied with humanitarian and self-defense laws.

An important aspect of obtaining an advisory opinion is formulating a question that is put forth to the ICJ. In this case, Vanuatu would develop a question to be voted on by the UN General Assembly; it would need a majority for the case to be referred to the ICJ. The phrasing of the question is key in that it should fall under international law and be specific enough that the court can give a pointed answer. Moreover, the question could fall under one of the three areas—state responsibility, loss and damage, and human rights.

State responsibility would ask the court to clarify state obligations to ensure that their greenhouse emissions do not severely affect other states. Loss and damage would be concerned with the issue of compensation for damage caused by climate change. Lastly, human rights would identify the state’s obligation to combat climate change due to its effect on human rights. Framing the question in accordance with the last area, human rights, would be most beneficial due to the precedence it could set for future litigation.

The link between climate change and human rights was recognized on 8th October 2021 by a UN Human Rights Council resolution which stated that “having a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a human right.” Furthermore, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child also declared that “failure to take measures to prevent foreseeable human rights harm caused by climate change…could constitute a violation of States’ human rights obligations.” This demonstrates the growing acceptance by courts and international institutions of the damaging effects of climate change on human rights: taking away the right to life, right to health, and right to housing among others.

Indeed, Urgenda v The Netherlands is a landmark case wherein 886 Dutch citizens asserted that the government had a legal duty to mitigate climate change. Despite several appeals by the government, the Supreme Court upheld the decision and asked that Netherlands reduce its emissions by at least 25% in comparison to 1990 levels before 2020. The significance of this case and its potential replication in other countries was emphasized by Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Thus, if the ICJ’s advisory opinion clarifies the state’s responsibility on mitigating climate change due to its effect on human rights, it would set precedent for national courts making replication of Urgenda v The Netherlands easier.

In addition to providing national courts a basis for litigation, an advisory opinion highlighting the human dimensions of climate change would give climate-vulnerable states more leverage while engaging in international climate negotiations. Specifically, it would oblige states to have climate targets that are in line with international human rights standards and also entitle “victims of human rights violations” to some compensation. In the court, violations considered could be loss of land or forced displacement, both of which could warrant reparations. Indeed, this goes back to John Locke’s theory of natural rights wherein human beings are born with certain fundamental rights such as that of life, liberty, and property that the government has a responsibility to protect. Therefore, climate change’s effect on the right to life—through dangerous weather-related events—or on the right to property—through the displacement of people’s homes—requires government intervention.

Furthermore, this reliance on courts is especially essential as international climate negotiations at times result in a deadlock, with no incentive for a state to cooperate unless they are experiencing a tangible risk from the climate crisis. In fact, an example is the ongoing debate between developed and developing countries on who has contributed the most to global warming and how the cost of mitigating climate change should be divided. Developing countries argue that the industrialization undertaken by the developed countries over time has led to the accumulation of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) in the atmosphere, transferring the responsibility of tackling global warming onto them. Developed nations, however, argue that current polluting nations—such as India and China—should cut down on their emissions to play their part.

This illustrates the collective action problem wherein it would be advantageous for nations to cooperate to alleviate climate change, but they do not do so and instead expect each other to take charge. Thus, holding governments and corporations accountable through judicial means has become an attractive option. Climate-vulnerable countries like Vanuatu have a lot to gain from a favorable ICJ ruling. An ICJ’s advisory opinion has the ability to establish the link between human rights and climate change, potentially allowing national courts to litigate based on this precedent. However, given all the benefits, it is important to underscore that if nations, especially powerful ones in the global North, do not comply with the ICJ’s ruling, it would ultimately harm the legitimacy of international law.

November 17, 2022 430 comments

Image from iStock. https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/mojave-desert-sunrise-gm615801574-106920805.

Climate Change Environmental Change Featured Middle East Water

The Rise of Hydro-politics in the Middle East

written by Grace Funk

The Middle East faces an existential water crisis and is running out of time to fix it. According to NASA data, the 2020-2021 rainfall season in the region was the second driest in 40 years. Groundwater storage is at the lowest level ever recorded, and sandstorms have been blanketing much of the region with unprecedented frequency – almost weekly. Not only is there insufficient water for crop irrigation, quite frankly there is often not enough water for household use. Yet despite these grave circumstances, approximately 82 percent of the water in the Middle East continues to be used inefficiently. As a result, and because it is already the world’s most water scarce region with 11 of the 17 driest countries in the world, water scarcity will emerge as the Middle East’s foremost challenge. Unless Middle Eastern countries find a way to build sustainable infrastructure and to cooperate with their neighbors to combat water scarcity, water – and the resulting “hydro-politics” – will become the driving force of conflict in the Middle East in the coming decades. This is evident in the political and environmental repercussions already wrought by the water crisis in the region.

In a 2010 resolution, the United Nations General Assembly declared access to clean water a human right. But water is becoming an increasingly politicized issue in the Middle East. Shortages across the region fuel protests about government mismanagement or hoarding of water. This politicization of water known as hydro-politics aggravates other conflicts in the region like those between Iran and Iraq and between Turkey and Syria.

Take, for example, the “Uprising of the Thirsty” in 2021 led by Iranian citizens frustrated over water shortages. Iran blamed Afghanistan for limiting its water supply through the Kamal Khan Dam on the Helmand River. Ironically, however, Iran built its own dam on the Helmand and Tigris Rivers that limits water supply to its neighbor, Iraq. This illustrates a common practice in the region: shifting the blame to other countries instead of confronting domestic water management.

Iraq is now pointing the finger at Iran and claiming that Iran is not considering Iraq’s own water needs. In recent months, Iraq has declared that it will take its fight to the International Court of Justice in the Hague. It claims that Iran has violated agreements between the countries to allocate Iraq a fair share of water. Iraq further alleges that Iran is using water as a political tool to influence Iraqi presidential elections. Iran in return claims that Iraq has just poorly managed its own water resources.

The political conflict over the Middle Eastern water crisis has sped up the decay of the region’s natural environment. The Iraqi water deficit, heightened by drought and climate change, is expected to only increase in severity. The deficit is estimated at about 11 billion cubic meters a year and will continue to grow as the country’s population grows. Summer temperatures have reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit, making it even harder for crops to grow. Specifically, for the 2021-2022 harvest, 25 percent of about 1,300 households surveyed by the Norwegian Refugee Council observed over 90 percent of wheat crop failure. And, Iraqi experts have announced that if the Iraqi water crisis is not confronted, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, from which Iraq receives most of its water, will dry up by 2040.

In addition to the lack of water for personal use and farming, the lack of water contributes to dust storms. Salam Abdulrahman, a lecturer at Iraq’s University of Human Development, posits that Iraq’s dust storms are not just caused by lack of water – they lead to a lack of water as well. “After every dust storm,” he said, “people need to wash [the dust from] their house, yard, cars, and gardens.” But, the supply of water is simply not adequate. This vicious cycle has placed Iraqis at a disadvantage to live normal lives. After all, water is a human right, and lack of water has dire consequences.

Conflict between Iran and Iraq is not new – it reaches back to the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War in the latter 20^th century. But new water disputes have intensified old tensions, a paradigm that is also witnessed in the nearby Turkey-Syria conflict.

Syria’s north, which is semi-autonomous and controlled by Kurds, receives water from a plant whose power is controlled by Kurdish forces. The Kurds claim that Turkey interferes in management of the plant, specifically by cutting off its power. Turkey, with its long-standing animosity toward the Kurdish people, claims in turn that the Kurdish forces cut off power to the plant to pursue a political agenda.

Tens of thousands of Syrians in this region do not have access to tap water or even enough water to irrigate crops because of the contentious and unreliable operation of the plant. In Raqqa, for example, the flow of water has decreased from 600 cubic meters a second to under 200. This means that the 400,000 people living in Raqqa do not have access to enough water.

Along with Turkey’s alleged interference in northern Syrian water infrastructure, the Syrian water crisis is exacerbated by drought, poor maintenance of infrastructure, and lack of thoughtful planning for future water-related complications. Syria’s crisis is representative of other nations in the region that, left as is, can only get worse. Abetting this forthcoming disaster is the violent civil war that has been ravaging Syria for the last decade, and such destruction has not spared the infrastructure that regulated water use.

The Middle Eastern water crisis must be addressed to avoid a catastrophic future. And, based on examples from other countries, it can and should be addressed. Nearby, India and Pakistan collaborated to form the Indus Water Treaty in 1960, which annually allocates water of the countries’ shared rivers to each country. The two countries continued to collaborate even when nuclear war between them was imminent. In Eastern Europe, Balkan countries formed an agreement regarding shared water resources of the Danube, which helped create stability in the region after the Yugoslav Wars ended in 2001. The agreement launched trade activities between countries as well as inspired reconstruction of resources after war.

Hydro-politics, in short, is nothing if not existential. If not confronted and addressed, the Middle East cannot thrive or even survive. Climate change, drought, resource mismanagement, and political skirmishes all contribute to the current water crisis. Thankfully, some countries have begun to take this issue seriously.

Iraq has decided to rehabilitate ten oases in its Western Desert to help combat dust storms. It has even launched The Iraq Vision for Sustainable Development 2030 to protect its environment from climate change, according to a spokesman for its Ministry of Planning. Saudi Arabia announced that it will plant 10 billion trees in the region during the next decade and will collaborate with other Arab nations to plant 40 billion more. These trees will break up the mostly flat landscape of the region and supposedly hinder the path of the sandstorms.

It is possible for the water crisis to be addressed. The Middle East, however, does not have limitless time. Climate change looms now. Water infrastructure is being mishandled now. The sharing of water has become a political game now. Thus, now is the time to confront the water crisis. If not – and if the region stays as is – the Middle East’s biggest problem in the future will surely be its scarcity of water.

November 17, 2022 416 comments