Rupert Stuart-Smith

Today in the @bmj.com, @thomwetzer.bsky.social and I argue that legal developments in recent years effect unprecedented limits on corporate and state climate conduct. The chasm between legal duties and many actors' conduct leaves legal risk widespread for many firms. Read more at the link below 👇

Medical evidence drove legal action to clean up the air we breathe—climate justice may be next A growing corpus of legal action, grounded in medical and scientific evidence on the harmful effects of environmental pollution, aims to defend human rights to life and health. Rachel Carson’s semina...

Today, in the @bmj.com, @gaialisi.bsky.social and I set out how developments in scientific evidence on the health impacts of climate change could pave the way for climate cases to follow in the footsteps of successful litigation on environmental pollution. Full piece here www.bmj.com/content/391/...

Multi-century global and regional sea-level rise commitments from cumulative greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades - Nature Climate Change It is important to understand how much long-term sea-level rise is already committed due to historical and near-term emissions. Here the authors use a modelling framework to show how decisions on glob...

Really important paper led by my @iiasa.ac.at colleague Alex Nauels www.nature.com/articles/s41...
“The difference between decisive climate action today and continued high emissions is not just measured in degrees of warming but also in meters of sea-level rise” 👏👏👏

Quantifying the regional to global climate impacts of individual fossil fuel projects to inform decision-making - npj Climate Action npj Climate Action - Quantifying the regional to global climate impacts of individual fossil fuel projects to inform decision-making

For so long, fossil fuel projects have said their contribution to climate change is "negligible".
Turns out that's wrong.
Our research in NPJ Climate Action proves it.
Every tonne of CO2 matters.
@21stcenturyweather.bsky.social
@minderoo.bsky.social
#climatechange
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Overshoot: Exploring the implications of meeting 1.5C climate goal ‘from above’ - Carbon Brief The first-ever international conference on the contentious topic of “overshoot” was held last week in...

Super comprehensive report on our @iiasa.ac.at overshoot conference by @carbonbrief.org. Great summary and overview on some of the central discussion points. Check it out👇👇👇
www.carbonbrief.org/overshoot-ex...

"Health losses attributed to anthropogenic climate change," a brief communication in the journal Nature Climate Change. There's a map showing regions of the world, and pie charts of relevant studies as they apply to different health impacts like "heat-related deaths" and "maternal and child health"

🚨 NEW: Climate change is already causing 30,000 deaths per year - a global annual economic loss of $100-350B USD - but the true damage is probably 10x higher. Out TODAY in Nature Climate Change: the first systematic look at the science of "health impact attribution" 🔓 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Refining methods for attributing health impacts to climate change: a heat-mortality case study in Zürich - Climatic Change Heat-related deaths occur throughout the summer months, peak during heatwaves, and are affected by temperature and exposed populations’ sensitivities to meteorological conditions. Previous studies fou...

And you can read it open-access here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The paper was co-authored with @anavicedo9.bsky.social Sihan Li @frediotto.bsky.social Kristine Belesova, Andy Haines @harrinluke.bsky.social Jeremy Hess, Rashmi Venkatraman @thomwetzer.bsky.social Alistair Woodward @krisebi.bsky.social - @smithschool.ox.ac.uk

Finally, we quantified individual companies' emissions' contributions to heat-related deaths using a simple 'market-share' approach that quantifies attributable deaths in proportion to emissions. The six highest-emitting companies globally caused at least one additional death each summer since 2004.

A benefit of this approach was that we could use daily observed mortality data to quantify heat-related deaths, rather than mean mortality for the day of the year, allowing us to more precisely quantify how many attributable deaths occured on any given day.

To quantify heat-mortality during and outside of heatwaves, we modified the approach used elsewhere and calculated counterfactual temperatures by subtracting attributable temperature anomalies from observations, producing a 50-yr time series that matches observed temperature flucturations.

We then quantified heat-mortality during and outside heatwaves. The hottest temperatures often get the most attention - and heat deaths are indeed highest then - but three-quarters of heat mortality attributable to human influence on the climate in 2018 occurred outside of the 12-day heatwave.

in KlimaSeniorinnen v Switzerland to justify its finding that Switzerland needed to reduce emissions: "Although the applicants could agree that adaptation was also crucial, it was not an answer to what Switzerland should have done to mitigate climate change." hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#_ftnref178

Our finding shows that changes in vulnerability can reduce heat-mortality, but at least in Zurich, it's still not been enough. Only ceasing GHG emissions will stop the burden of climate change-caused deaths from rising further. As a preprint, the European Court of Human Rights cited this result...

We conducted experiments where we applied the heat-mortality relationship from the 1980s/90s to 2004-2018 as a 'constant vulnerability' baseline and found that >700 deaths had been avoided by declining vulnerability. But attributable heat-related deaths had continued to rise in any case.

We knew that vulnerability to heat changes with time: e.g. behavioural/infrastructual adaptation to heat would be reducing vulnerability while population ageing has the opposite effect. But what is the overall effect of changing vulnerability? Could it be enough to counteract the effects of warming?

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.

The guidance is designed to be inclusive and method-agnostic, identifying key steps for robust, high quality analyses. We hope that it will prove useful to study authors, reviewers, journal editors and research funders.

Available here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Out now: new guidance for research that attributes health outcomes to climate change led by @krisebi.bsky.social, Andy Haines @lshtm.bsky.social, myself, supported by a fantastic team of co-authors and @wellcometrust.bsky.social.

We need CDR. 🧩

But the ambiguity & lack of transparency regarding #CDR in states‘ climate plans jeopardize the PA. ❌

We unpack this issue by reviewing strategies of 70+ states concerning their CDR plans. 📑

👇 More in the thread by lead author Rupert Stuart-Smith & our study doi.org/10.1080/1469...

New research on limits to CO2 removal (CDR). CDR is key to our ambition to stop adding climate pollution to the atmosphere. Because it's uncertain how much will be delivered and it clearly comes with risks of social & environmental side-effects, legal issues arise. This paper provides an overview. 👇

Implications of states’ dependence on carbon dioxide removal for achieving the Paris temperature goal Achieving the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goal of limiting global warming well below 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C requires rapid and sustained reductions in greenhous...

Our new article is available open access here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

@smithschool.ox.ac.uk @oxfordgeography.bsky.social @oxfordlawfac.bsky.social @pik-potsdam.bsky.social @granthamicl.bsky.social

Legal analysis, in conjunction with the risks associated with CDR-dependent targets assessed here, could clarify states’ mitigation obligations under international law and facilitate progression past a risk-blind and indiscriminate use of scientific pathways in assessing states’ targets. More soon!

That previous work was published in @science.org and can be found here: www.science.org/doi/full/10....

To minimise risks associated with reliance on CO2 removal, states should prioritise pathways that minimise overshoot and dependence on removals to reach net-zero. Risks associated with high CDR dependence might render state action inconsistent with norms and principles of international law.

-- Reliance on international cooperation to deliver CO2 removal (e.g. via carbon trading mechanisms) is also common in states' plans and amplifies these risks.

-- Non-delivery of planned CO2 removal would raise global temperatures further, worsening the impacts of climate change.

-- There is pervasive lack of transparency and ambiguities in states' international reporting, with respect to how states intend to meet their climate targets.

-- However, dependence on high levels of CO2 removal is widespread and substantial risks to delivery of planned CO2 removal exist.

-- Inadequate near-term emission reductions are common, jeopardise the Paris climate targets and create substantial long-term dependence on CO2 removal to eliminate a temperature overshoot, with its associated risks.

🚨 Out now in @climate-policy.bsky.social: New research with @thomwetzer.bsky.social @rubenpruetz.bsky.social @joerirogelj.bsky.social Lavanya Rajamani, Marianne Wood and Ewan White: States are depending heavily on CO2 removal to meet climate targets, risking the Paris Agreement goal.

Last days to apply for this exciting new role within my team at @oxfordgeography.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk. If you are a climate scientist with experience in climate change attribution or projections and an interest in climate change impact modelling, we would love to hear from you!