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Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability

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.

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Fig. 1: Estimated change in global mean temperature and local extreme heat by carbon majors.
Fig. 2: Estimated cumulative economic losses from extreme heat by carbon majors.
Fig. 3: Estimated losses from individual extreme heat events by carbon majors.
Fig. 4: Attributable damages depend on emissions and the time period considered.

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All data that support the findings of this study are available through IEEE DataPort at https://doi.org/10.21227/w3fm-w720.

Code availability

All computer code that supports the findings of this study are available through IEEE DataPort at https://doi.org/10.21227/w3fm-w720.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Fogel (Berkeley Judicial Institute), J. T. Laster (Delaware Court of Chancery), C. Cunningham (ret.), M. Burger (Sabin Center), J. Wentz (Sabin Center), R. Horton (Columbia University), D. Kysar (Yale Law School) and B. Franta (Oxford University) for helpful discussions, C. Smith (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) for assistance with FaIR calibration, and R. Heede (Climate Accountability Institute) for assistance with emissions data. We thank Dartmouth’s Research Computing and the Discovery Cluster for the computing resources and the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP6. This work was supported by National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship #1840344 to C.W.C. and by funding from Dartmouth’s Neukom Computational Institute, the Wright Center for the Study of Computation and Just Communities and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center to J.S.M.

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  1. Program in Ecology, Evolution, Environment and Society, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Christopher W. Callahan & Justin S. Mankin

  2. Department of Geography, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Christopher W. Callahan & Justin S. Mankin

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Justin S. Mankin

  4. Ocean and Climate Physics, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA

    Justin S. Mankin

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Both authors designed the analysis. C.W.C. performed the analysis. Both authors interpreted the results and wrote the paper.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Damages when annual average temperatures are held at their observed values.

As in Fig. 2a but when emissions only affect the intensity of Tx5d values and not the annual average temperatures that moderate the effect of Tx5d. Map was generated using cartopy v0.17.0 and regional borders come from the Database of Global Administrative Areas.

Extended Data Table 1 Availability of emissions data for the top five companies
Full size table

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Callahan, C.W., Mankin, J.S. Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability.
Nature 640, 893–901 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08751-3

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  • Received: 27 March 2023

  • Accepted: 06 February 2025

  • Published: 23 April 2025

  • Issue Date: 24 April 2025

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08751-3

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