Document Type
Article
Abstract
What rights do coastal residents have as the seas swallow their homes and livelihoods while the government fails to act? Many legal and policy reforms have been proposed to help people better respond to climate-induced coastal erosion. Little has been said about the underlying theories of climate governance. This Symposium Article identifies three theories of climate adaptation in the context of disappearing coastlines: scientific realism; economic realism; and liberal rights. According to scientific realism and economic realism, the key obstacle to effective climate adaptation is an uninformed government facing a scientifically and economically complex climate future. To the extent that better-informed government will make more prudent adaptation decisions, the solution is to update legislatures, judges, administrators, and other government officials on the latest and most relevant scientific and economic information. According to the liberal rights theory of climate governance, the key obstacle to effective adaptation is the lack of public awareness about what moral and political rights individuals have as the climate changes. Rights unawareness manifests as public disempowerment and inertia, which ultimately results in maladaptive laws and fewer available adaptation resources. This Article points out contradictions within scientific and economic realism. It then shows how a liberal rights theory supports robust demands for climate mitigation efforts and climate reparations from the primary contributors to climate change—major carbon polluting countries, corporations, and individuals—to the extent that they are responsible for irreversibly destroying vast domains of habitable coastal land and other natural resources around the world. It then elaborates and defends the liberal rights theory of climate adaptation by examining closely what John Locke, the English Enlightenment philosopher famous for his defense of human rights and property rights, would have said about climate-induced coastal inundation. The Article concludes by discussing what enforcement mechanisms Locke prescribes for rights violations in a pre-political state of nature and civil society, as well as political remedies of last resort when government fails to protect its constituents’ rights.
Recommended Citation
Lingxi Chenyang,
A Lockean Theory of Coastal Climate Adaptation,
30
Ocean & Coastal L.J.
(2025).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/oclj/vol30/iss2/2
