This paper deals with the role of the legal liability framework in fostering the financial internalisation of environmental damages. Two different instruments will be considered. The next paragraph reviews the US and EC corporate environmental liability systems. Then a second instrument, namely financial responsibility, which precisely respond to the need of internalising damages by forcing the firm to identify ex ante the financial resources to be allocated for damage compensation, will be analysed and its advantages from an economic point of view will be stressed. Finally, some remarks will be on the role of the financial and insurance instruments in the future to face the problem of the effects of climate change.