The International Spread of the Climate Crisis

            The smoky, acrid haze we lived with last week was upsetting. It caused me to wonder if the future we have been warned about is finally upon us. It seems like the world has been burning pretty regularly over the last five years, and the fires burn more acreage and for longer periods than they ever used to.

            I suspect that the haze that we were waking up to last week is just the beginning and not the end.

            As a lawyer, I started thinking about what the law has to say about all this. If we are going to control any of these climate disasters, it seems like we need to have some clear policies in place to do it.

            So I went down a rabbit hole searching for answers about how we can address the climate changes that appear to be getting more common.

            It turns out that there are actually international treaties and conventions that address what is known as trans-boundary air pollution. These conventions are intended to impose legal obligations on states and nations where fire or other air pollutants travel across borders and impact the air quality of individuals in neighboring states. However, not all nations are parties to these conventions.

In 1998 countries in southeast Asia signed the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in response to the impact of haze pollution caused by forest fires in 1997–1998. The convention requires the parties to monitor the potential of transboundary haze pollution and take steps to mitigate the impact of any pollution. In particular the Convention requires signatories to take steps to prevent, prepare for, and respond to fires that may pose a threat to other signatories.

Canada and the United States have an agreement that allows for mutual aid to fight wild forest fires if a request for assistance is made. The agreement provides that participating departments from each country may request assistance from participating agencies from the other state. The country requesting assistance is to meet the costs of the sending country, including compensation for loss or damage to property and for the death or injury of firefighters. The agreement is supplemented by an annual operational plan that provides procedures for each country to request assistance, procedures to facilitate the movement of fire fighters and firefighting resources across the national border, and details for cost recovery.

However, international law would likely not allow for a country to unilaterally send firefighting resources to a neighboring country to mitigate the damage and harm that could come from a spreading wildfire including transboundary air pollutants.

Still, the country where the fire is located would have international legal obligations to suppress and contain the fire and might even be obligated to request assistance from threatened neighbors if the fire could cause harm directly or indirectly to the inhabitants or property of a neighboring state.

The White House has reported that President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau have had discussions about the ongoing fires, and the United States has sent 600 personnel and other firefighting assets to support Canadian officials in suppression efforts.