For­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Amery Browne has ex­pressed shock and dis­ap­point­ment over Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­ci­sion not to par­tic­i­pate in a key Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly vote on a cli­mate-re­lat­ed res­o­lu­tion tied to an ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion from the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ).

The draft res­o­lu­tion, tabled by Van­u­atu along­side a re­gion­al­ly di­verse group of mem­ber states, sought to re­in­force the au­thor­i­ty of the ICJ’s ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion on cli­mate change and af­firm gov­ern­ments’ com­mit­ment to in­ter­na­tion­al law and mul­ti­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion in ad­dress­ing the cli­mate cri­sis.

The res­o­lu­tion did not re­quire una­nim­i­ty to pass, with on­ly a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty need­ed. How­ev­er, sup­port­ers ar­gued that a strong ma­jor­i­ty vote would have demon­strat­ed con­tin­ued in­ter­na­tion­al back­ing for col­lec­tive cli­mate ac­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty with vul­ner­a­ble na­tions, in­clud­ing Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS).