Civil Law Perspectives on Private Damage Relief in Climate Change Litigation

Abstract

Abstract:Climate change has emerged as a structural challenge to the global legal system in the 21st century. In recent years, the increasing number of cases where private entities seek damage relief in climate litigation has posed institutional tensions for the traditional civil law system in terms of rights construction, liability attribution, and causal determination. This paper, grounded in the analysis of typical judicial precedents from countries such as the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands, integrates the statutory framework and institutional potential of China’s Civil Code to delve into feasible pathways for protecting individual rights in climate-related damages. The paper argues that the trend of civil law application in climate change litigation necessitates a threefold innovation in legal theory and practice: first, promoting the ecological interpretation of civil law and to reconstruct the status of individual rights in climate damage; second, reshaping the tort liability system by introducing proportional liability and climate-specific duties of care; third, developing a mechanism for integrating scientific and judicial approaches in liability attribution. On this basis, constructing a private damage relief system with enforceability, operability, and sustainability can help activate the institutional function of civil law in addressing climate crises, thus achieving a deep integration of the rule of law and ecological civilization.