Vanuatu pares back UN climate draft after US pressure as ICJ reparations push goes to vote

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Vanuatu has been forced to pare back a United Nations draft resolution demanding that countries act on the climate crisis after pressure from the United States, but the South Pacific nation says the motion still stands and will go to a vote later this month.

The original Vanuatu-led text sought to push member states to implement a landmark International Court of Justice advisory opinion from last year that suggested countries could face reparations if they fail to curb the climate emergency. Washington’s intervention — described by Vanuatu as direct and persistent — prompted the removal of several contested sections, most notably a proposed registry for “loss and damage” suffered by countries hit by climate impacts such as storms, floods and droughts.

“Having the Trump Administration actively intervening in the market to stop the phase-out of fossil fuels is very frustrating; it’s beyond what you’d expect a government to do,” Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change Adaptation, Ralph Regenvanu, said, warning that the US stance would have “a huge, harmful effect on the world and future generations.” Regenvanu said Washington had even asked Vanuatu to withdraw the resolution altogether and had pushed back hard on its language.

A new, trimmed draft circulated this week retains non-binding language calling on UN members to “comply fully with their obligations under international law as they relate to climate change” in line with the ICJ opinion. It also urges efforts to restrain global temperature rise to 1.5°C through “a rapid, just and quantified phase‑out of fossil fuel production and use.” Vanuatu and its backers say the softer text is intended to preserve the core legal and moral message even if more robust mechanisms were excised to win passage.

Regenvanu confirmed a coalition of countries is backing Vanuatu’s initiative, naming the Netherlands, Colombia, Barbados, Kenya, Jamaica and the Philippines among supporters. He said, however, that opposition — led by the United States and supported by major fossil fuel producing states such as Saudi Arabia and Russia — had been more effective in influencing the draft than those in favour. “The EU has not been as helpful as we expected,” he added, expressing disappointment at a lack of stronger European support.

The US State Department, according to a recently circulated cable, warned embassies that the resolution could “pose a major threat to US industry,” describing the ICJ-based push as legally and politically risky. The Trump Administration has repeatedly dismissed mainstream climate science and sought to roll back domestic and international measures aimed at reducing fossil fuel use, and its resistance at the UN underlines wider geopolitical stakes around accountability for climate harms.

Although non-binding and unlikely to alter immediate US policy if adopted, the resolution’s proponents cast it as a foundational step: a way to “begin building up a body of law for when the politics are different,” in the words used by advocates. Vanuatu hopes that, even in attenuated form, the resolution will pass with more than a simple majority and help solidify international norms on climate responsibility and reparations for loss and damage.