These Low-Lying Nations Say They're Going to Sue Fossil Fuel Companies

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Faced with an expected future of rising seas and more powerful storms, Pacific Islanders say they're going to take carbon polluters to court to preserve "our people and our environment."

"As the people most acutely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, we will not let the big polluters decide and assign our fate," states the "People's Declaration for Climate Justice," issued this week in Vanuatu. "Our rights and ability to survive must not be dictated by the continued addiction to the burning of fossil fuels."

Vanuatu was devastated by Tropical Cyclone Pam in March. Its president endorsed the declaration, as did representatives of the Philippines, Fiji, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu.

The statement vows to hold major carbon emitters "and their respective governments" to account before "appropriate international bodies or processes." It doesn't specify a venue or timetable for the legal action, but the international environmental group Greenpeace says it will ask the Philippines Commission on Human Rights to investigate the issue as a direct threat to human rights.

Related: The world's largest sovereign wealth fund will no longer invest in coal companies

It was issued the same week that the Group of Seven industrial powers agreed to completely phase out the use of fossil fuels by 2100 and as negotiators held talks in the German city of Bonn ahead of the major climate summit set for Paris in December.

While American leaders debate whether climate change is real, the residents of those islands say they're already seeing the effects. Kiribati is already making plans to evacuate its population to Fiji, which has agreed to take in its neighbor's population of about 100,000. And the massive storms that have hit the region repeatedly in the past few years have "claimed thousands of lives, displaced millions of people, damaged livelihoods, and caused a severe economic toll in relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction efforts," the declaration states.

Julie-Anne Richards, a campaigner for the Australia-based, non-governmental Climate Justice Programme, said a tax on fossil fuels could help compensate those vulnerable countries for their losses.

"We know that just 90 oil, coal, and gas producers are responsible for two thirds of the man-made emissions in our atmosphere today," Richards said in a statement. "Does it seem fair that these polluters continue to profit, while the people in the Pacific are paying with their homes and their lives?"

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