Study Blames Fossil Companies for Heatwaves, Opens New Avenue for Climate Litigation

A group of researchers blames 180 fossil fuel and cement producers for the hardening of these extreme phenomena

Among the greatest advances in climate science in recent years are attribution studies, which manage to land something apparently abstract and distant like warming in everyday life. Because these analyses calculate the influence of climate change on specific extreme events, such as floods, fires and droughts. The journal Nature published this Wednesday a study of this type that concludes that 213 historical heat waves recorded in the world between 2000 and 2023 were more likely and intense due to global warming. These are episodes such as the very high temperatures recorded in Spain in the summer of 2022, an extreme event that climate change made 2.5 degrees more intense and more than 10,000 times more likely, according to the lead author of this research, Yann Quilcaille, from the Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich. In other words, without the current human-caused warming, an event this long and harsh would have been almost impossible. Each and every one of the 213 waves analysed were hit by climate change, but, in addition, a quarter (55) would have been practically impossible without the current warming, as was the case with the 2022 event in Spain, one of the eight in this country included in the report. But the study not only shows the consequences of this climate crisis, it also specifies the causes and points directly to those who have expelled the most greenhouse gas emissions between 1854 and 2023, that is, since the massive burning of fossil fuels that overheats the planet began.

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