05/23/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/18xQ66y6w5/?mibextid=wwXIfr
The entire world just voted to hold polluters accountable for the climate crisis. The United States voted no, lining up with Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia to do it.
The numbers tell the whole story.
The UN General Assembly voted 141 to 8 to adopt a resolution backing a World Court opinion that says nations have a legal obligation to address climate change. One hundred forty-one countries said yes. Eight said no.
Look at who said no. The United States, the single largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet, joined Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Israel, Yemen, Liberia, and Belarus.
That's the company we're keeping now. Some of the world's biggest oil producers and a handful of pariah states, standing together against the basic idea that countries shouldn't be allowed to torch the planet without consequence.
Meanwhile, Australia, Germany, France, the UK, and 137 other nations stood on the other side.
The resolution was brought by Vanuatu, a Pacific island nation that is literally watching the ocean swallow its land.
This was not an abstract exercise for them. As Vanuatu's UN ambassador put it before the vote, the harm "is real and it is already here," and the people suffering most are very often the ones who did the least to cause it.
He's right. Consider what's happening in the Pacific right now. In Tuvalu, where the average elevation is barely six feet above sea level, more than a third of the entire population has already applied for climate migration visas to Australia.
By the end of this century, much of the country is projected to be underwater at high tide. In Nauru, the government has started selling passports to wealthy foreigners just to raise money for a possible relocation of its own people.
Entire nations are preparing to evacuate the land they live on. And the United States, under Trump, used its diplomatic muscle to try to kill the resolution before it ever reached a vote. The Associated Press reported back in February that the administration had been pressuring other countries to lean on Vanuatu to withdraw it entirely.
This is the same administration that yanked the US out of the Paris climate agreement and has thrown everything it has behind boosting fossil fuel production.
The official US objection was that the resolution made "inappropriate political demands relating to fossil fuels." Translation: don't ask us to burn less oil.
The world is drawing a line. On one side, 141 countries and the rule of law. On the other, the oil barons, the autocrats, and us.
