Transcript:
Some governments and nonprofits are suing fossil fuel companies for their role in causing climate change.
But is it possible to directly connect the actions of individual fossil fuel companies to the damages caused by global warming?
Chris Callahan of Indiana University says yes.
He and a Dartmouth College scientist recently used climate models to link emissions data from major fossil fuel companies to the increase in extreme heat events around the world. Then they connected those increases to economic losses from harms like lower crop yields and reduced worker productivity.
Callahan: “We showed that major fossil fuel firms like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, can be linked to billions or even trillions of dollars in economic losses around the world from rising extreme heat over the last 30 years.”
But Callahan says the most important takeaway from this research is not any specific number. It’s the implication for climate liability lawsuits.
Callahan: “It is no longer sufficient for a company to simply say, ‘We’re one of many emitters and it’s not clear what impacts we’ve caused, so you can’t hold us liable.’ In fact, we can show what impacts have been caused by an individual emitter, and we believe that message will be important in these cases.”
Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media
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