Ryan Ba­choo

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.