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| Climate attribution science is getting more and more sophisticated. This might make it increasingly possible for local governments to recoup from climate disasters, like this 2024 Vermont flood might have been. |
Climate attribution studies - the art and science of determining to what extent weather extremes are tied to climate change - are getting so good that they're starting to delve into how much individual corporations are responsible for given disasters.
This advanced work on assigning individual corporations' role in climate disasters is known as end-to-end attribution.
For now, the focus is on heat waves, as the science doesn't appear to be quite there in assigning blame for other disasters, like floods, wildfires and hurricanes. But that's coming.
"A new study by climate researchers in Europe and the U.S. and published in the journal Nature has taken this analysis further, by lining the deadliest type of disaster - heat waves - directly to major fossil fuel companies and their products.
The study looked at major heat waves that happened between 2000 and 2023 and the role of 'carbon majors.' These include state-owned companies (such as Gazprom in Russia or Saudi Armco, investor-owned private companies (Shell, BP, ExxonMoil or even Canadian companies such as Suncor and Census) and nation-states that produce fossil fuels such as coal (India, the former Soviet Union)."
The study indicated that the median intensity of heat waves globally between 2010 and 2019 was about 1.68 degrees Celsius hotter, and 0.47 Celsius of that was due to just 14 of the largest carbon producers.
"The study goes into granular detail, with data for each one of the 180 carbon majors and their specific contribution to each of the 213 heat waves studied. The detail even shows the impact of smaller companies - for example, the smallest carbon major by emissions, a Russian coal company, made 16 heat waves more than 10,000 times likely - meaning the heat waves would have been virtually impossible without the emissions of that carbon major."
The study drew on previous research detailing the lifetime carbon emissions of these carbon majors, and other studies that show how carbon emissions make heat waves worse. They then connected those two strands to estimate how the emissions of a specific carbon major impacted the severity and likelihood of a particular heat wave.
The research doesn't assign a quantity or dollar amount of heat wave damage caused by each corporation. Besides, heat waves usually don't cause much damage to buildings and infrastructure, at least compared to other disasters.
But heat waves kill a lot of people, and how do you put a price tag on that?
Then there are practical matters. Some regions are more prepared for heat waves than others. An intense heat wave might not be as bad in, say Oklahoma, because practically everyone there has air conditioning. Air conditioning, meanwhile, is much more rare in western and northern Europe, where heat waves in recent decades have been taking an especially big toll.
Still, this attribution science regarding climate damage caused by specific firms is probably of great interest to policymakers.
A great example is here in Vermont.
Vermont and New York have enacted "climate superfund" laws, which would force corporations that produce large amounts of carbon dioxide to pay a share of what climate change has cost Vermont, based on how much the company contributed to global emissions during the same period.
Lawmakers in Vermont were prodded into enacted this legislation in part by a series of devastating floods in the state.
Trump's Department of Justice has sued both Vermont and New York, claiming the climate superfund laws attempt to "extorts" energy producers.
Still, if the New York and Vermont superfund laws survive the legal challenges, or we get a more climate friendly administration in the future, the research we're talking about would definitely interest people in both states. And any other jurisdiction that wants to establish similar laws.
Beyond the United States, the International Court of Justice issued a July advisory opinion that said countries dealing with climate disasters could seek reparations from countries emitting the most carbon.
Some legal experts said the International Court of Justice, which is under the United Nations, could spur similar moves around the world in local courts.
Any science that would more accurately assign responsibility for climate-related disasters and expenses might favor all these laws and lawsuits.
End-to-end attribution can boost a claimant's case, notes the Conversation. Such attribution can meet what is known as the "but for" test, which means that but for a specific company's emissions, climate related damages would not have happened.
Also, notes the Conservationist:
"One is called proportional liability, and it attempts to quantify the extent to which a company's emissions contribute d to increased risk or the severity of damage. This flexibility strengthens the method's applicability across different legal systems."
Meanwhile, climate attribution science will almost definitely continue to improve. That science is going to be a force that a lot of people in power are going to need to contend with.
Also, says the Conservationist, "The end-to-end attribution method enables claimants to connect global warming to local disasters, such as the 2021 Pacific Northwest 'heat dome'. This is crucial, as climate litigation focused on single, high-impact events is usually more successful."
Climate attribution science is getting more and more sophisticated. This will probably change the climate legal landscape, even if the Trump administration is trying to postpone that day.
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