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The Unit­ed Na­tions’ top court in a land­mark ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion Wednes­day said coun­tries could be in vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law if they fail to take mea­sures to pro­tect the plan­et from cli­mate change, and na­tions harmed by its ef­fects could be en­ti­tled to repa­ra­tions.

Ad­vo­cates im­me­di­ate­ly cheered the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice opin­ion on na­tions’ oblig­a­tions to tack­le cli­mate change and the con­se­quences they may face if they don’t.

“Fail­ure of a state to take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion to pro­tect the cli­mate sys­tem ... may con­sti­tute an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly wrong­ful act,” court Pres­i­dent Yu­ji Iwa­sawa said dur­ing the hear­ing. He called the cli­mate cri­sis “an ex­is­ten­tial prob­lem of plan­e­tary pro­por­tions that im­per­ils all forms of life and the very health of our plan­et.”