MEDIA reporting on the role of climate change in extreme weather events used to be framed somewhere along the lines of: 鈥淎lthough this is the kind of phenomenon that global warming makes more frequent, we can鈥檛 attribute individual weather events to climate change.鈥� This was correct in the 20th century, but it is definitely wrong today.
The to attribute an individual extreme event, the 2003 European summer heatwave, to climate change was published in 2004. Many followed. More than 50 are from , an initiative of climate scientists I co-founded in 2015 that studies events like extreme rainfall, heatwaves and droughts to assess whether human-induced climate change made them more likely and intense.
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Last year, our study that monsoons in Pakistan that led to flooding, at least 1500 deaths and over $30 billion in damages was made up to 75 per cent more intense by climate change. The extreme heat hitting southern Europe and parts of North America this summer also . Studies like these form a major new line of evidence in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, showing human-caused climate change .
Attribution science can also evidence the unequal impacts of climate change. The extreme weather it intensifies is inflicting enormous damage on the world鈥檚 poorest, who overwhelmingly live in the Global South (lower-income, often decolonised nations mainly in the south of the world) and have contributed least to emissions.
Why is this important? Why do we not only need to know that heatwaves will become more frequent with global warming, but also how much angrier a particular weather event has become? It is because this lets us connect theoretical understanding with concrete losses and experience, and thus to take huge steps forwards in climate policy and litigation.
We can measure the amount of greenhouse gases that human activities have added to the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution. We also have databases compiling the amount of carbon dioxide emissions linked to fossil fuel companies and countries. Now, we know how much more intense a storm is and how much of the damages are attributable to human-induced climate change.
It is no coincidence that the COP27 climate conference last year finally decided to set up a fund to support vulnerable nations with losses and damages from climate change, or that fossil fuel firms for over $50 billion in damages that occurred during an extreme heatwave in 2021.
As well as providing evidence to hold countries and companies accountable for their inaction on climate change, individual attribution studies also highlight how communities can become more resilient to increased extreme weather in the future.
Every study we have done has found that suffering and disasters resulted from people鈥檚 exposure to extreme weather because they needed to earn money and had no alternative income sources, lacked information about how to react to an extreme weather alert, lived in poor quality housing and more. In short, their exposure was down to existing vulnerabilities and overstretched or non-existent social systems.
While climate change often made hazards worse, many of the worst impacts could have been prevented. This might sound dire, but in fact it gives us a lot of agency to make the world better. We need to keep fighting to stop burning fossil fuels, but there are also many lives to be saved by improving the quality of life for all.
Friederike Otto is a climatologist at Imperial College London and and author of , translated by Sarah Pybus and published by Greystone Books
This story is part of a series in which we explore the most pressing questions about climate change. Read the other articles below听
What made July the hottest month ever? | The dangers of climate doom | Is climate change really accelerating? | The pace of the renewable energy revolution | Can humans adapt to heat? | Fight doomism and denial
