The U.S. was among eight countries that voted against endorsing the nonbinding ruling that said all nations must take steps to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
While nonbinding, the court’s opinion is widely viewed as an authoritative interpretation of existing law. Legal experts say it could be used as persuasive authority in domestic climate litigation and in diplomatic arenas like the annual U.N. climate summits.
In its opinion, the ICJ—the principal judicial body of the United Nations—affirmed that limiting long-term global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius remains the primary goal for global climate action. It clarified that customary legal obligations apply to all countries regardless of whether they are parties to the U.N. climate treaties, and that protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights.
The court also said the countries have a duty to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, including by regulating private actors, and it suggested that continued boosting of fossil fuels could be considered an internationally wrongful act.
The resolution adopted by the General Assembly on Wednesday seeks to operationalize the court’s opinion. It calls upon countries to comply with their international obligations as clarified by the court. It also urges countries to implement measures to achieve the 1.5-degree objective, including by transitioning away from fossil fuels. And it requests that the U.N. Secretary-General issue a report exploring ways to advance compliance.
When the vote finally came, following some procedural wrangling over proposed amendments, it passed by a resounding majority with 141 member states voting in support, and 28 abstaining.
Only eight countries, Belarus, Iran, Israel, Liberia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Yemen,
voted against the resolution.
Prior to the vote, the U.S. delivered an oral statement strongly opposing the proposal and urging all countries to vote against it. “The United States continues to have serious legal and policy concerns about this resolution,” Tammy Bruce, deputy representative of the United States to the United Nations, said on the assembly floor. She called it “highly problematic” in directing states to comply with “so-called obligations,” including the duty to prevent transboundary harm to the global climate, which she said was “legally wrong.”
“The resolution includes inappropriate political demands relating to fossil fuels and on other climate topics,” Bruce added. She further argued that it makes “alarmist political statements such as the idea that climate change is an unprecedented challenge of civilizational proportions.”
In a speech before the General Assembly in September 2025, President Donald Trump called climate change the “greatest con job” in history and described renewable energy and other measures to reduce carbon emissions as a “green scam,” urging member nations to reject climate measures and consume American oil and gas.
The court itself stated in its opinion, aligning with warnings from top climate and Earth system scientists, that climate change is an “existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.”
In the months leading up to the vote on the resolution, the U.S. had reportedly tried pressuring other countries to oppose it and demand that Vanuatu withdraw it altogether. Vanuatu did not drop the resolution, but it did make some compromises on the text, such as eliminating a call to establish a global registry to track climate-related loss and damage.
In the end, though, the resolution endorsing the court’s opinion passed by a considerable margin, without any last-minute amendments that climate justice advocates say would have weakened the text even further. Advocates celebrated the milestone.