CHAPTER 6: PAVING THE WAY FOR A PREVENTIVE CLIMATE CHANGE TORT LIABILITY REGIME

Abstract

It is now a well-known phenomenon: all around the world, there is a surge in climate change litigation. Stakeholders – private individuals, NGOs, state and sub-state actors – are tackling the issue of climate change and bringing the fight for climate before the courts, in order for them to challenge public policies and private activities, impose sanctions on those who cause harm and, as a result thereof, climate change, and order adequate preventive and/or compensation measures. What aboutthe prevention of climate damage? What role can play the law on tort liability in this regard? Going forward, could companies be held liable for future climate damage? Could the courts order them to adopt preventive measures? Could these courts play a role, echoing the dichotomy that exists in the international climate regime, by ordering mitigation and adaptation measures? These are the questions we will seek to address, by “paving the way for a preventive climate change tort liability”. While on the one hand, our work naturally flows from the reflection led by the doctrine, focused on working out the role of tort liability against climate change, on the other hand, operating a shift, our aim is to take a look at the law on tort liability, not through the prism of its compensatory function, but through the prism of its preventive function.