EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability

Christopher W. Callahan () and Justin S. Mankin ()
Additional contact information
Christopher W. Callahan: Dartmouth College
Justin S. Mankin: Dartmouth College

Nature, 2025, vol. 640, issue 8060, 893-901

Abstract: Abstract Will it ever be possible to sue anyone for damaging the climate? Twenty years after this question was first posed, we argue that the scientific case for climate liability is closed. Here we detail the scientific and legal implications of an ‘end-to-end’ attribution that links fossil fuel producers to specific damages from warming. Using scope 1 and 3 emissions data from major fossil fuel companies, peer-reviewed attribution methods and advances in empirical climate economics, we illustrate the trillions in economic losses attributable to the extreme heat caused by emissions from individual companies. Emissions linked to Chevron, the highest-emitting investor-owned company in our data, for example, very likely caused between US $791 billion and $3.6 trillion in heat-related losses over the period 1991–2020, disproportionately harming the tropical regions least culpable for warming. More broadly, we outline a transparent, reproducible and flexible framework that formalizes how end-to-end attribution could inform litigation by assessing whose emissions are responsible and for which harms. Drawing quantitative linkages between individual emitters and particularized harms is now feasible, making science no longer an obstacle to the justiciability of climate liability claims.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08751-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:640:y:2025:i:8060:d:10.1038_s41586-025-08751-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08751-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-04-24
Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:640:y:2025:i:8060:d:10.1038_s41586-025-08751-3