Prof Friederike Otto

Very exciting “job” I’ll have over the coming months. Can’t wait to see how & where this dearly needed field of fiction is moving. 📕📗⚖️🔥

How the world’s taste for soya is eating Brazil’s Amazon Cultivation of the crop has made a few wealthy but at a huge cost to untouched forest as it spreads across vast areas of former wilderness

Terrible headline on a good article. It’s the world’s taste for MEAT that’s fuelling Amazon destruction. The soya is cattle feed.

Planetary boundaries sound very abstract & high level, this year, for the first time @eraju.bsky.social & I contributed a chapter how breaching these boundaries has affected people around the world: losing lives, livelihoods, health… & for whom the limits of adaptation have been reached.

I was wrong! @eraju.bsky.social is here!

After almost a decadal hiatus, back at KMD in Nairobi, running a @wwattribution.bsky.social workshop with three superstars: @clairbarnes.bsky.social, Joyce Kimutai & Emmanuel Raju (who somehow didn't make it to blue sky yet).

Just quoting the final key point, which very few leaders seem to be acting on:
"While policies are needed to protect people from heat, a rapid shift away from fossil fuels is the most effective way to avoid hotter and deadlier summers."

The summer is over - and for about 16,600 people across 854 European cities that doesn't mean autumn comes, but death. People who would still be alive if it wasn't for our burning of fossil fuels. - New study with @lshtm.bsky.social www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/pub...

Out now: our new study shows that climate change caused nearly 1,700 heat-related deaths in Zürich over 50 years.

We assessed the effects of changing vulnerability to heat, heat-mortality within and outside of heatwaves, and the contribution of individual companies' emissions to heat deaths.

a graph of high temperatures, daily severity rating and radiative power, showing how heat and DSR built up before fires broke out

Heat & very dry air that used to be rare, now very common in Spain & Portugal, putting huge strain on EU firefighting resources - at 1.3C global warming. Every additional ton of fossil fuels burnt will make European summers even more deadly & dangerous www.worldweatherattribution.org/extreme-fire...

Hosted by @meteoleipzig.bsky.social @unileipzig.bsky.social @tropos-de.bsky.social , ECO-N research training group funded by @dfg.de
Great lectures by @sebastian-sippel.bsky.social @frediotto.bsky.social @mdebrito.bsky.social @zscheischlerjak.bsky.social and more!

The current Advanced Training Module on "Climate Attribution", joinly by our interdisciplinary research training group "Economics of Connected Natural Commons" and the Leipzig Graduate school on Clouds, aerosols and radiation sparked large interest: 65 PhD researchers from 7 countries!

📣Job alert!

We're hiring a Media Relations Manager at Imperial College London. Applications are closing tomorrow.

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOK861/m...

Innocent! Eating kale.

map of the Aegean coast depicting change in vapour pressure deficit due to climate change

One of the strongest, clearest increases in likelihood & intensity, attributable to climate change, I've seen in a complex index like fire weather - the more intense & frequent events in Greece & Türkiye are already outpacing efforts to adapt.
www.worldweatherattribution.org/weather-cond...

Media Relations Manager (World Weather Attribution and Grantham Institute) at Imperial College London Explore professional services job openings, including the Media Relations Manager (World Weather Attribution and Grantham Institute) position, on jobs.ac.uk. Apply today and discover more about this r...

One of the best climate science comms jobs around, helping journalists explain how climate change has influenced extreme weather events, working with a top bunch of scientists at @wwattribution.bsky.social including @frediotto.bsky.social. London based, closes 5 Sep

Team Photo of WWA team

Do you want to be part of our amazing team @wwattribution.bsky.social team? If you are a science/comms expert, you can! Please do consider applying - www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

Sunset over the sea with a big rock in the sea, distorting the light reflecting from the setting sun

In July Fennoscandia was hit by a heatwave similar to one that hit the region in 2018. In just seven years, similar events have become almost twice as likely due to increased global temperatures from 1.1 to 1.3°C.

Every fraction of a degree matters! www.worldweatherattribution.org/intense-two-...

Climate breakdown 'an injustice multiplier' Simon Pirani reviews 'Climate Injustice: Why We Need to Fight Global Inequality to Combat Climate Change', by Friederike Otto (Greystone Books, 2025)

Thanks @theecologist.org for publishing my review of Climate Injustice by @frediotto.bsky.social. It's a great contribution to desperately-needed dialogue between climate scientists and social movements. theecologist.org/2025/aug/06/...

a map of rainfall over the study region

population density over the study region

Heavy, deadly monsoon rainfall in Pakistan has become more intense with climate change - about 15%, but it could be as high as 40 - 80%: www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-chan...

A short article on our 'mini-heatwave' study has been published by @rtebrainstorm.bsky.social. This is the first report by the new @wasitusie.bsky.social project with @peterthorne.bsky.social. Funded by EPA and in conjunction with Met Éireann and @wwattribution.bsky.social

My book - ClimateINJustice is shortlisted for the @wainwrightprize.bsky.social ! Really happy about this, as it's not traditional conservation writing - but conserving & fighting for us humans & our rights wainwrightprize.com/shortlist-20...

The ICJ’s climate ruling goes far beyond legal battles between small states and big polluters Written by Professor Friederike Otto, Professor in Climate Science at the Centre for Environmental Policy and Dr Alaa Al Khourdajie, Research Fellow at Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London. O...

🌍📜 Licensing and subsidising fossil fuels can now "constitute internationally wrongful acts,” write Dr @frediotto.bsky.social and ‪Dr Alaa Al Khourdajie.

Read their commentary on why The ICJ's new advisory marks a turning point for climate accountability: ow.ly/7aix50WvkuM

@dralaaclimate.bsky.social‬ & I were part of a small team of scientists talking to the judges as part of the process. To see how much emphasis on the science is in this AO highlights how much we know & that there is really no justification to hide behind uncertainty instead of act.

yes! The causality is clear, from GHG to extreme weather!

peace palace in the Hague in November in the dark

Advisory opinion from ICJ is big (in more then 1 sense), but this summaries a lot:"The Court is of the view that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of many human rights, such as the right to life, the right to health ..." www.icj-cij.org/sites/defaul...

Three key takeaways:
- Fossil fuel subsidies and licensing can now constitute internationally wrongful acts
- The 1.5°C limit is no longer aspirational - it's a legal obligation
- States cannot hide behind "concurrent causes" to avoid climate reparations

2/5

YouTube video by ClimateAdam How Climate Change Supercharges Deadly Heatwaves

How is climate change boosting deadly heat?

And - crucially - what can we do about it??

feat. my old pal @frediotto.bsky.social!

youtu.be/y3pbc0rjKX0

FYI - I was not asking for a 101 on landslides, we actually thought of including regional experts in the study. I'm making a point about problematic practices on making rainfall observations inaccessible for research. Including researchers in country.

picture of a landslide in Medellin

What caused deadly landslides in Colombia? Finding out, should be easier. Tropical climates are complex, but if data are held by companies & organisations hiding them behind walls of bureaucracy it becomes impossible. @wwattribution.bsky.social study: www.worldweatherattribution.org/growing-expo...

Happening tomorrow!