Climate Change Adaptation Through the Prism of Individual Rights

Abstract

Climate change is, perhaps quintessentially, a collective, rather than an individual, problem. The scale of the problem and the plausible solutions go far beyond the action of any particular individual, any particular entity, or perhaps even any particular nation. But that does not mean that an individual rights perspective cannot be instructive in considering one major dimension of climate change, climate change adaptation as it plays out in the courts. Climate change suits have been, and will continue to be, brought in the courts by property owners alleging that climate-change-adaptation regulation is depriving them of their individual rights without just compensation. We also will see suits alleging that the government’s failure to protect private property from climate change is a deprivation of individual property rights. Property rights are also implicated, if implicitly, in public nuisance suits alleging that energy companies caused climate change. In all these litigation settings, contested concepts of notice, harm, and causation will play a major role.