Past Emissions From Top Polluters Will Continue Warming the Planet for Decades to Come

If someone leaves the faucet running in your bathroom and the house floods, it’s easy to assign responsibility for the damage. If someone leaves the faucet running in your bathroom and the house floods, it’s easy to assign responsibility for the damage. But for other disasters — bigger, costlier and more complicated ones — the link between cause and effect isn’t as clear.

In recent years, scientists have improved methods for connecting extreme weather events, sometimes called climate disasters, to climate change. Advancements in attribution science clarify how burning fossil fuels has increased the likelihood of extreme weather occurring. These findings form the backbone of a growing list of lawsuits attempting to hold major emitters responsible for deaths and damages incurred during climate disasters.

A new University of Washington study takes this work a step further by showing that past emissions from carbon majors — the top 178 oil, gas, coal and cement producers — will continue impacting our environment for decades to come.

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Source: ENN