Liability to Climate Defensive Harm: A Normic Risk Approach

Abstract

Abstract Some authors have recently argued that people who emit large amounts of greenhouse gases are liable to defensive harm against their property. The main reason is that, according to recent estimates, a high emitter causes—in a matter of hours or days—a climate-related death in expectation. However, the actual probability that a high emitter will cause a death is very low. This is a problem in standard defensive liability accounts, which claim that a person can only be liable if she will cause death unless stopped, or at least creates the appearance that she will. There are plausible non-standard liability accounts where causation is not necessary for liability, and culpable risk imposition can suffice. The problem is that the probability of death that a high emitter imposes on each person is still low, on a par with many everyday acts that are intuitively justified. I argue that some emitters do nevertheless culpably impose unjustified risk. These emitters impose a low probability risk of death, but a very high normic risk of death. This means that it would be ‘normal’ if emitters caused death—we would need no additional explanation why their emissions caused death.