Only a few decades ago, it seemed impossible to link specific weather events, such as heat waves, directly to the broader trend of human-induced climate change. Today, however, there are established, peer-reviewed methods to quickly identify human influences in events like hurricanes and climate-fueled wildfires.
In a recent issue of Nature, Dartmouth researchers Christopher Callahan and Justin Mankin suggest that we’ve developed similar expertise in addressing another critical issue: the economic impact of individual climate events. They posit that it is now feasible to quantify the financial damages attributable to carbon emissions from specific companies. Their research indicates that “The global economy would be $28 trillion richer … were it not for the extreme heat caused by emissions from the 111 carbon majors.”
Callahan and Mankin propose that this methodology could empower legal action against these companies for climate-related damages. They claim, “By revealing the human fingerprint on events previously thought to be ‘acts of God,’ attribution science has helped make climate change legally legible.”
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(Source: Ars Technica)
