“Climate change damages”, conceptualization of a legal notion with regard to reparation under international law

Abstract

The damages related to climate change are a concerning issue for the international community, as no country will escape the impacts of climate change. Indeed, it is a preoccupation for the countries (mostly vulnerable) that will suffer those damages, but also for the States that emitted greenhouse gases which fear to have to repair them. That’s why the international negotiation related to the climate regime use the ambiguous term “loss and damage” to design the impacts related to climate change.The purpose of this article is to know if the term “loss and damage” is a useful one in view of reparation under international law or if it is necessary to conceptualize the “climate change damage” notion employed by the doctrine. More precisely, the central question is the following: why is it necessary to conceptualize the “climate change damage” notion?Even though “loss and damage” could formally be a legal concept, it is substantially useless with regard to reparation under international law because it is too ambiguous.Therefore, we judged necessary to clarify the concept of “climate change damage” used by the doctrine but that unfortunately defines it insufficiently. Indeed, it could be useful for the doctrine but also for the lawyers of vulnerable countries and the judges to dispose of a legal notion in order to consider the reparation of the damages related to climate change under international law. Consequently, we propose in this article a definition of climate change damage that could be useful with regard to reparation under international law.