Unfortunately, that ruling can easily be extrapolated to the domain of global health. Yet, resources devoted to flagship green causes and to pandemic preparedness alike would save more lives if redirected to basic health, nutrition and economic development.
In response to a 2023 UN General Assembly request, the court published its Advisory Opinion a year ago. It concluded that states have legally binding duties to prevent significant environmental harm. Failure to do so leaves a country exposed to claims for restitution from those who have been harmed.
In many countries the Covid response mimicked the climate change playbook. The catastrophism of both agendas was based on models. Claims of scientific authority and existential crisis escalated the agendas into moral crusades and people were asked to bear sacrifices for the good of the collective humanity and the planet.
State power expanded under that rubric to replace people’s and business’s freedom of choice with policy diktats. The same moralism and risks were used to launch personal attacks on critics and ridicule and censor dissenting opinions, even from experts in the field, by claiming a monopoly on truth and the best policies to manage the crises. The costs of the policies, risks of collateral harms and resulting need for policy trade-offs were dismissed....<<<Read More>>>...
