IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v133y2015i3p439-451.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ethical and normative implications of weather event attribution for policy discussions concerning loss and damage

Author

Listed:
  • Allen Thompson
  • Friederike Otto

Abstract

Extreme weather events, at least in the short term, will arguably cause more damage and thus adversely affect society more than long term changes in the mean climate that are attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. While it was long perceived as impossible to directly link a singular event with external climate drivers the emerging science of probabilistic event attribution renders it possible to attribute the fraction of risk caused by anthropogenic climate change to particular weather events and their associated losses. The robust link of only a small fraction of excessive deaths in, e.g., a heatwave to manmade climate change is very significant from an ethical point of view and we argue that this has widespread implications, e.g. for pending policy decisions concerning the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage and the recognition of such losses in the broader context of climate justice. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Allen Thompson & Friederike Otto, 2015. "Ethical and normative implications of weather event attribution for policy discussions concerning loss and damage," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 439-451, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:133:y:2015:i:3:p:439-451
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-015-1433-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-015-1433-z
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-015-1433-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benito M�Ller & Niklas Höhne & Christian Ellermann, 2009. "Differentiating (historic) responsibilities for climate change," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(6), pages 593-611, November.
    2. Dáithí Stone & Maximilian Auffhammer & Mark Carey & Gerrit Hansen & Christian Huggel & Wolfgang Cramer & David Lobell & Ulf Molau & Andrew Solow & Lourdes Tibig & Gary Yohe, 2013. "The challenge to detect and attribute effects of climate change on human and natural systems," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 381-395, November.
    3. Myles Allen, 2003. "Liability for climate change," Nature, Nature, vol. 421(6926), pages 891-892, February.
    4. Kevin Trenberth, 2012. "Framing the way to relate climate extremes to climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 115(2), pages 283-290, November.
    5. Peter A. Stott & D. A. Stone & M. R. Allen, 2004. "Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003," Nature, Nature, vol. 432(7017), pages 610-614, December.
    6. Christian Huggel & Dáithí Stone & Maximilian Auffhammer & Gerrit Hansen, 2013. "Loss and damage attribution," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 3(8), pages 694-696, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Greg Lusk, 2017. "The social utility of event attribution: liability, adaptation, and justice-based loss and damage," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 201-212, July.
    2. Serdeczny, Olivia & Waters, Eleanor & Chan, Sander, 2016. "Non-economic loss and damage in the context of climate change: understanding the challenges," IDOS Discussion Papers 3/2016, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    3. Emily Williams, 2020. "Attributing blame?—climate accountability and the uneven landscape of impacts, emissions, and finances," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 161(2), pages 273-290, July.
    4. Dominic Roser & Christian Huggel & Markus Ohndorf & Ivo Wallimann-Helmer, 2015. "Advancing the interdisciplinary dialogue on climate justice," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 349-359, December.
    5. Roberto Mera & Neil Massey & David Rupp & Philip Mote & Myles Allen & Peter Frumhoff, 2015. "Climate change, climate justice and the application of probabilistic event attribution to summer heat extremes in the California Central Valley," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 427-438, December.
    6. Friederike E. L. Otto & Petra Minnerop & Emmanuel Raju & Luke J. Harrington & Rupert F. Stuart‐Smith & Emily Boyd & Rachel James & Richard Jones & Kristian C. Lauta, 2022. "Causality and the fate of climate litigation: The role of the social superstructure narrative," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 13(5), pages 736-750, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Greg Lusk, 2017. "The social utility of event attribution: liability, adaptation, and justice-based loss and damage," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 201-212, July.
    2. Luke J. Harrington, 2017. "Investigating differences between event-as-class and probability density-based attribution statements with emerging climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 141(4), pages 641-654, April.
    3. -, 2018. "Climate Change in Central America: Potential Impacts and Public Policy Options," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL en México (Estudios e Investigaciones) 39150, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    4. Luke J. Harrington & Kristie L. Ebi & David J. Frame & Friederike E. L. Otto, 2022. "Integrating attribution with adaptation for unprecedented future heatwaves," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 172(1), pages 1-7, May.
    5. Rob Dellink & Michel den Elzen & Harry Aiking & Emmy Bergsma & Frans Berkhout & Thijs Dekker & Joyeeta Gupta, 2009. "Sharing the Burden of Adaptation Financing: An Assessment of the Contributions of Countries," Working Papers 2009.59, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    6. Paavola, Jouni & Adger, W. Neil, 2006. "Fair adaptation to climate change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 594-609, April.
    7. S. E. Perkins-Kirkpatrick & C. J. White & L. V. Alexander & D. Argüeso & G. Boschat & T. Cowan & J. P. Evans & M. Ekström & E. C. J. Oliver & A. Phatak & A. Purich, 2016. "Natural hazards in Australia: heatwaves," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 101-114, November.
    8. Friederike Otto & Emily Boyd & Richard Jones & Rosalind Cornforth & Rachel James & Hannah Parker & Myles Allen, 2015. "Attribution of extreme weather events in Africa: a preliminary exploration of the science and policy implications," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 132(4), pages 531-543, October.
    9. Sebastian Sippel & F Otto, 2014. "Beyond climatological extremes - assessing how the odds of hydrometeorological extreme events in South-East Europe change in a warming climate," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 381-398, August.
    10. Zhongwei Liu & Jonathan M. Eden & Bastien Dieppois & Matthew Blackett, 2022. "A global view of observed changes in fire weather extremes: uncertainties and attribution to climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 1-20, July.
    11. Lee, Sangjun & Zhao, Jinhua, 2021. "Adaptation to climate change: Extreme events versus gradual changes," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    12. John McClure & Ilan Noy & Yoshi Kashima & Taciano L. Milfont, 2022. "Attributions for extreme weather events: science and the people," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 1-17, October.
    13. Christian Huggel & Dáithí Stone & Hajo Eicken & Gerrit Hansen, 2015. "Potential and limitations of the attribution of climate change impacts for informing loss and damage discussions and policies," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 453-467, December.
    14. Ivo Wallimann-Helmer, 2015. "Justice for climate loss and damage," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 469-480, December.
    15. Patrick T. Brown, 2023. "When the fraction of attributable risk does not inform the impact associated with anthropogenic climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(8), pages 1-11, August.
    16. Diekert, Florian & Goeschl, Timo & König-Kersting, Christian, 2024. "The Behavioral Economics of Extreme Event Attribution," Working Papers 0741, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    17. Henri F. Drake & Geoffrey Henderson, 2022. "A defense of usable climate mitigation science: how science can contribute to social movements," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 172(1), pages 1-18, May.
    18. Aglaé Jézéquel & Vivian Dépoues & Hélène Guillemot & Mélodie Trolliet & Jean-Paul Vanderlinden & Pascal Yiou, 2018. "Behind the veil of extreme event attribution," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 367-383, August.
    19. Geert Jan Oldenborgh & Karin Wiel & Sarah Kew & Sjoukje Philip & Friederike Otto & Robert Vautard & Andrew King & Fraser Lott & Julie Arrighi & Roop Singh & Maarten Aalst, 2021. "Pathways and pitfalls in extreme event attribution," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 1-27, May.
    20. repec:ecr:col022:39150 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Markku Rummukainen, 2013. "Climate change: changing means and changing extremes," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 3-13, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:133:y:2015:i:3:p:439-451. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.