Attribution for Climate Torts

Saad, Aisha I

Abstract: This Article argues that advances in climate science overcome key challenges to U.S. climate tort lawsuits by making it possible to attribute specific climate damages to human contributions to greenhouse gases. In the absence of comprehensive statutory regulation or executive action on greenhouse gas emissions, those seeking to mitigate and compensate the harms of climate change are turning to tort law as a tool of last resort. They are filing common-law negligence and nuisance claims against high-emitting industries like fossil fuel producers, electric utilities, and car manufacturers, for their contributions to the physical and economic impacts of climate change. This Article comprehensively reviews and systematically analyzes the climate science referenced in U.S. climate tort lawsuits and concludes that the state of science in such suits lags available methods. It demonstrates that novel methods of climate attribution can overcome obstacles that have previously frustrated tort lawsuits such as injury in fact, redressability, and causation. Climate attribution methods share important features with epidemiological methods that have been accepted by courts in toxic tort litigation since the 1970s. This Article has implications for climate tort lawsuits currently pending in state courts, and more broadly for efforts to establish causal linkages for climate change.

Key word: Causality; Climate change; Climate science; Costs; Emissions; Fossil fuels; Greenhouse gases; Hurricanes; Industrial plant emissions; Scientists; Sea level; State budgets; Torts

气候侵权的归因

萨阿德，阿伊莎一世

摘要：本文认为，气候科学的进步使人类对温室气体的贡献成为可能，从而克服了美国气候侵权诉讼面临的主要挑战。由于缺乏针对温室气体排放的全面法律法规或行政行动，那些寻求减轻和补偿气候变化危害的人正将侵权法作为最后手段。他们正在对化石燃料生产商、电力公司和汽车制造商等高排放行业提起普通法上的过失和妨害诉讼，理由是这些行业对气候变化的物理和经济影响做出了贡献。本文对美国气候侵权诉讼中涉及的气候科学进行了全面的回顾和系统的分析，并得出结论认为此类诉讼的科学状况落后于现有的方法。它表明，气候归因的新方法可以克服以前阻碍侵权诉讼的障碍，如伤害事实、可补救性和因果关系。自20世纪70年代以来，气候归因方法与法院在有毒侵权诉讼中接受的流行病学方法具有重要特征。本文对目前在州法院未决的气候侵权诉讼具有启示意义，更广泛地说，对建立气候变化因果关系的努力具有启示意义。

关键词：因果关系；气候变化；气候科学；成本；排放；化石燃料；温室气体;飓风；工业厂房排放；科学家；海平面之下；国家预算；侵权行为

文章来源：Saad, Aisha I. “ATTRIBUTION FOR CLIMATE TORTS.” Boston College law review 64.4 (2023): 867–948. Print.