Tort Law and Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions

It has been argued that tort law is not designed to deal with environmental matters. In this contribution, this claim further explored. It is examined how tort law can (as opposed to should) be made more suitable to address environmental harm. Focusing on the loss and causality requirement, and using the Urgenda case for illustration purposes, this contribution compares two types of claims: an injunction (to stop the wrong or injustice) and a damages claim. The contribution’s conclusion is that tort law is more suitable for deciding environmental matters than sometimes is suggested in legal scholarship