New Study Links 174 Companies to Deadly Heat Waves

One hundred and eighty of the world’s largest oil, gas, coal, and cement producers are collectively responsible for the heat waves that have killed hundreds of thousands of people over the past two decades. A new study published today in Nature has, for the first time, directly tied hundreds of heat waves to these so-called carbon major entities.

Although communities and activists have long pointed to these entities’ role in driving extreme heat, few judicial cases have held any company accountable. Courts often dismiss lawsuits for lack of evidence. This new study provides crucial data that could help make justice possible.

The carbon majors “have long claimed that the impacts of climate change are too far removed from emissions for any principle of accountability to apply,” said climate scientist Dr. Christopher Callahan at Indiana University Bloomington, who was not involved in the research. This study, he said, “shows that that claim is false.”

Until recently, extreme weather attribution has mostly focused on single disasters. Such studies typically assess whether climate change made a given event more likely, but they do not identify who was responsible for the emissions that drove those changes. 

That gap is what led climate scientist Dr. Yann Quilcaille and his team from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich to look for the culprits.

By tracing emissions back to their producers, Quilcaille said, attribution science can support communities seeking damages or stronger climate action. “We didn’t have that information before,” Quilcaille said. “Now we do.”