Negligence, strict liability, and responsibility for climate change

Iowa Law Review

Volumn 97, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 521-565

  Weisbach, David ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

^b ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84856281835     PISSN: 00210552     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (84)

1. see Emilio L. La Rovere et al., The Brazilian Proposal on Relative Responsibility for Global Warming, in BUILDING ON THE KYOTO PROTOCOL: OPTIONS FOR PROTECTING THE CLIMATE 157 (Kevin A. Baumert et al. eds., 2002), available at http://pdf.wri.org/opc-full.pdf. Nations make a variety of other arguments as well. For example, they argue that poor nations should have a right to develop and an emissions cap would unfairly keep them poor. I focus here only on responsibility.
2. See Eric A. Posner & David Weisbach, Climate Change Justice (2010), for a discussion of other arguments about who should have to pay for emissions reductions.
3. PETER SINGER, ONE WORLD: THE ETHICS OF GLOBALIZATION 33-34(2002).
4. see News Archive 2007, UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE, http://unfccc.int/press/news.archive/items/4282.php (last visited Oct. 26, 2011). An ad hoc group of scientists working on this research formed Modeling and Assessment of Contributions to Climate Change, or MATCH. To view their results
5. see What's New?, MATCH, http://www.match-info.net (last visited Oct. 3, 2011). Another group of scientists has created FAIR: Framework to Assess International Regimes for differentiation of commitments.
6. See Framework To Assess International Regimes for Differentiation of Commitments, PBL NETHERLANDS ENVTL. ASSESSMENT AGENCY (Oct. 13, 2010), http://themasites.pbl.nl/en/themasites/fair/index.html. For additional discussions of responsibility for past emissions
7. see Simone Bastianoni et al., The Problem of Assigning Responsibility for Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 49 ECOLOGICAL ECON. 253, 253-57(2004) (comparing different methods and proposing a specific method to assign responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions);
8. Michel den Elzen et al., Analysing Countries' Contribution to Climate Change: Scientific and Policy-Related Choices, 8 ENVTL. SCI. & POL'Y 614, 634-36(2005) (evaluating the Brazilian Proposal and its sensitivity to parameter choice);
9. Niklas Höhne & Kornelis Blok, Calculating Historical Contributions to Climate Change-Discussing the 'Brazilian Proposal,' 71 CLIMATIC CHANGE 141, 163-64(2005) (discussing methodological issues with the "Brazilian Proposal");
10. 2 Emissions Due to Land Use Change, 32 ENERGY POL'Y 1499, 1504-08(2004) (studying the sensitivity of responsibility measures to estimates of climate response);
11. Richard S. J. Tol & Roda Verheyen, State Responsibility and Compensation for Climate Change Damages-A Legal and Economic Assessment, 32 ENERGY POL'Y 1109, 1123-25(2004) (estimating state responsibility for climate change using cumulative emissions after 2000).
12. See, e.g., Daniel A. Farber, Basic Compensation for Victims of Climate Change, 155 U. PA. L. REV. 1605(2007) (sketching the design of a compensation system for harms from changes to basic geographical characteristics);
13. Michael G. Faure & Andræ Nollkaemper, International Liability as an Instrument To Prevent and Compensate for Climate Change, 43 A STAN. J. INT'L L. 123(2007) (examining the case for liability);
14. David Hunter & James Salzman, Negligence in the Air: The Duty of Care in Climate Change Litigation, 155 U. PA. L. REV. 1741(2007) (examining whether greenhouse gas emitters have a duty of care);
15. Eric A. Posner, Climate Change and International Human Rights Litigation: A Critical Appraisal, 155 U. PA. L. REV. 1925(2007) (arguing against legal liability for climate damages). For a discussion of ethical issues by legal commentators
16. Matthew D. Adler Commentary, Corrective Justice and Liability for Global Warming, 155 U. PA. L. REV. 1859(2007) (arguing that corrective-justice principles are not sufficient to support legal liability for climate damages);
17. Daniel A. Farber, The Case for Climate Compensation: Justice for Climate Change Victims in a Complex World, 2008 UTAH L. REV. 377 (arguing that the United States has a duty to reduce emissions because of its responsibility for past emissions).
18. See, e.g., CLIMATE ETHIC: ESSENTIAL READINGS (Stephen M. Gardiner et al. eds., 2010);
19. JAMES GARVEY, THE ETHICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: RIGHT AND WRONG IN A WARMING WORLD (2008);
20. PAUL G. HARRIS, WORLD ETHICS AND CLIMATE CHANGE (2010);
21. STEVE VANDERHEIDEN, ATMOSPHERIC JUSTICE: A POLITICAL THEORY OF CLIMATE CHANGE (2008). For collections of essays about equity in climate abatement and adaptation more generally
22. see FAIR WEATHER EQUITY CONCERNS IN CLIMATE CHANGE (Ferenc L. Tóth ed., 1999);
23. FAIRNESS IN ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE (W. Neil Adger et al. eds., 2006).
24. CAIT: Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, WORLD RESOURCES INST. (2010), http://cait. wri.org. The data presented here, with the exception of that contained in Figure 3, are based on CAIT as of April 22, 2011. As discussed below, Figure 3 uses CAIT data as of November 10, 2008 in order to include land-use-change data which were subsequently deleted from the CAIT database. Issues surrounding the use of that data are discussed infra Part I. A-B.
25. Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Annex A, Dec. 11, 1997, 37 I. L. M. 22, available at http://unfccc.int/ resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf.
26. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis 33-34 tbl. TS.2 (Susan Soloman et. al. eds., 2007).
27. Who We Are, WORLD RESOURCES INST., http://www.wri.org/about (last visited Oct. 26, 2011).
28. EDGAR: Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), PBL NETHERLANDS ENVTL. ASSESSMENT AGENCY (Oct. 5, 2010), http://www.mnp. nl/edgar/. Additionally, the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center collects emissions data. CDIAC, http://cdiac.ornl.gov/(last visited Oct. 26, 2011). Finally, the IPCC data are publicly available on their website. I chose CAIT because of its completeness and its ease of use.
29. CAIT: Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, supra note 7;
30. see also WORLD RES. INST., CAIT: GREENHOUSE GAS SOURCES & METHODS (2010), available at http://cait.wri.org/downloads/cait-ghgs.pdf.
31. WORLD RES. INST., supra note 16, at 23;
32. see United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, art. 4, ¶ 4 (a), May 9, 1992
33. U. N. T. S. 107 [hereinafter Framework Convention];
34. see also UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE, http://unfccc.int/2860.php (last visited Oct. 26, 2011) (explaining the Framework Convention).
35. WORLD RESOURCES INST., supra note 16, at 6.
36. Framework Convention, supra note 17, Annex I.
37. See WORLD RES. INST., supra note 16, at 6;
38. WORLD RES. INST., supra note 16, at 6.
39. 2 Emissions, CDIAC (2010), http://cdiac. ornl.gov/trends/emis/overview-2007.html. CAIT itself includes data back to 1850.
40. World Res. Inst., supra note 16, at 7.
41. See WORLD RES. INST., supra note 16, at 8 box 1.
42. Infra Part I. C.4. Those calculations are based on the GTAP7 database rather than CAIT. Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), PURDUE UNIV. (2011), https://www.gtap.agecon. purdue.edu/databases/v7/default.asp (on file with author). "The GTAP Data Base is a fully documented, publicly available [(although not free)] global data base which contains complete bilateral trade information, transport and protection linkages among 113 regions for all 57 GTAP commodities for a single year (2004 in the case of the GTAP 7 Data Base)."
43. WORLD RES. INST., supra note 16, at 13-14.
44. see Gilbert E. Metcalf & David Weisbach, The Design of a Carbon Tax, 33 HARV. ENVTL. L. REV. 499(2009).
45. See R. A. Houghton, Revised Estimates of the Annual Net Flux of Carbon to the Atmosphere from Changes in Land Use and Land Management 1850-2000, 55 B TELLUS 378(2003), for one example of the type of data used in prior versions of CAIT.
46. see Richard A. Houghton, Carbon Flux to the Atmosphere from Land-Use Changes 1850-2005, CDIAC (2008), http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/landuse/houghton/ houghton.html.
47. EILEEN CLAUSSEN & Lisa McNeilly, Pew Ctr. on Global Climate Change, Equity & Global Climate Change 20(1998), available at http://www.pewclimate. org/docUploads/pol-equity.pdf.
48. Marina Cazorla & Michael Toman, Res. for the Future, International Equity and Climate Change Policy 3(2000) (Res. for the Future's Climate Econ. and Policy Program, Climate Issue Brief No. 27), available at http://www.rff.org/rff/Documents/RFF-CCIB-27.pdf.
49. UNITED NATIONS ENV'T PROGRAMME, VITAL CLIMATE CHANGE GRAPHICS 14(2005), available at http://www.grida.no/files/publications/vital-climate-change-update. pdf.
50. INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, CLIMATE CHANGE 2007: MITIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE 106 fig.1.4a (Bert Metz et al. eds., 2007).
51. How We Classify Countries, WORLD BANK, http://data.worldbank.org/about/ country-classifications (last visited Oct. 26, 2011).
52. These data were accessed on CAIT in November 2008. CAIT: Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, supra note 7.
53. Framework Convention, supra note 17, art.12.
54. see Per-Olov Marklund & Eva Samakovlis, What Is Driving the EU Burden-Sharing Agreement: Efficiency or Equity?, 85 J. ENVTL. MGMT. 317(2007).
55. 2 Emissions, 107 PROC. NAT'L ACAD. SCI. 5687(2010);
56. Thomas Weidmann, A Review of Recent Multi-Region Input-Output Models Used for Consumption-Based Emission and Resource Accounting, 69 ECOLOGICAL ECON. 211(2009).
57. The calculations are taken from Joshua Elliott et al., CIM-EARTH: Framework and Case Study, 10 B. E. J. ECON. ANALYSIS & POL'Y, Article 11, at 21(2010)
58. and Joshua Elliott et al., Trade and Carbon Taxes, v100 AM. ECON. REV. 465, 467(2010).
59. HENRY D. JACOBY ET AL., JOHN F. KENNEDY SCH. OF GOV'T, HARVARD UNIV., SHARING THE BURDEN OF GHG REDUCTIONS 7-10(2008) (The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, Discussion Paper 08-09), available at http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/JacobyWeb2.pdf.
60. see Louis Kaplow & Steven Shavell, Fairness Versus Welfare 85-154(2002). Corrective-justice intuitions seem to be behind many of the claims about responsibility for climate change and the use of past emissions data. Therefore, I examine these theories without endorsing them here.
61. see Mark Wilde, CIVIL LIABILITY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF LAW AND POLICY IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES (2002)
62. and Andræ Tunc, The Twentieth Century Development and Function of the Law of Torts in France, 14 INT'L & COMP. L. Q. 1089(1965).
63. See Richard Epstein, Cases and Materials in Torts 101-53 (9th ed. 2009) (discussing the historic and analytical foundations of strict liability and negligence).
64. ARISTOTLE, NICOMACHEAN ETHICS BK. III, at 1-5 (Robert C. Bartlett & Susan D. Collins trans., Univ. of Chi. Press 2011) (c. 384 B. C. E.).
65. Stephen R. Perry, The Mixed Conception of Corrective Justice, 15 HARV. J. L. & PUB. POL'Y 917, 931(1992). For additional works on corrective justice and tort law
66. see GUIDO CALABRESI, THE COSTS OF ACCIDENTS (1970);
67. George P. Fletcher, Fairness and Utility in Tort Theory, 85 HARV. L. REV. 537(1972);
68. Stephen R. Perry, The Moral Foundations of Tort Law, 77 IOWA L. REV. 449(1992);
69. Ernest J. Weinrib, Toward a Moral Theory of Negligence Law, 2 L. & PHIL. 37(1983). Richard Epstein argues that corrective justice requires strict liability.
70. Richard A. Epstein, A Theory of Strict Liability, 2 J. LEGAL STUD. 151(1973).
71. See, e.g., JAMES GARVEY, THE ETHICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: RIGHT AND WRONG IN A WARMING WORLD 81 (James Garvey & Jeremy Stangroom eds., 2008) ("The emissions resulting from the efforts of a farmer in Africa as he attempts to feed his family are not on a par with the emissions resulting from the efforts of an American dermatologist as he attempts to get to Vegas for a weekend of gambling. There is a meaningful distinction between subsistence emissions and luxury emissions, even if pinning it down takes some doing.... Arguing the point is as good as saying that some Rwandans should die so that some Virgin Islanders can recharge their mobile phones." (citation omitted)).
72. Henry Shue, Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions, in CLIMATE ETHICS 200, 202 (Stephen M. Gardiner et al. eds., 2010). Shue's argument appears to be purely distributive rather than based on culpability for past wrongs. I do not address distributive concerns here. For a discussion of these issues
73. See Consolidated Version of the Treaty Establishing the European Community, pt. 3, tit. XIX, Dec. 24, 2002, 2002 O. J. (C 325) 33, 108 (establishing an environmental policy based on the principle that the polluter should pay).
74. see NICOLAS DE SADELEER, ENVIRONMENTAL PRINCIPLES: FROM POLITICAL SLOGANS TO LEGAL RULES (2002).
75. Directive 2004/35/CE, of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on Environmental Liability with Regard to the Prevention and Remedying of Environmental Damage, 2004 O. J. (L143) 56.
76. See Gerd Winter et al., Weighing Up the EC Environmental Directive, 20 J. ENVTL. L. 163, 175-77(2008).
77. See The Environmental Damage (Prevention and Remediation) Regulations 2009, part 4, § 18 (Eng.).
78. 2 trading regime in the 1990 Clean Air Act is a strict liability regime as it imposes caps on emissions entirely without regard to fault.
79. See Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, 42 U. S. C. §§ 7651c (a) (1), 7651d (a) (1) (2006). The permits, however, were handed out based on historical emissions, so the regime did not impose liability for past actions as is suggested in the climate context.
80. See Vaclav Smil, ENRICHING THE EARTH: FRITZ HABER, CARL BOSCH, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF WORLD FOOD PRODUCTION 109-32(2001) (discussing the evolution of ammonia synthesis).
81. Jules L. Coleman, The Practice of Corrective Justice, 37 ARIZ. L. REV. 15, 27(1995);
82. Eric A. Posner & ASS R. SUNSTEIN, CLIMATE CHANGE JUSTICE, 96 GEO. L. J. 1565(2008);
83. See Steven Shavell, Liability for Accidents, in 1 HANDBOOK OF LAW AND ECONOMICS 139, 143-47 (A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell eds., 2007) (Handbooks in Econ., Handbook No. 27 (Kenneth J. Arrow & Michael D. Intriligator eds., 2007)).
84. See generally Louis Kaplow, An Economic Analysis of Legal Transitions, 99 HARV. L. REV. 509(1986).