Event attribution is not ready for a major role in loss and damage

Loss and damage funds are intended to support low-income regions experiencing impacts of human-caused climate change. Currently, event attribution should only play a limited role in determining loss and damage spending, but this role could grow as the field advances.

At the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt, the most newsworthy outcome was the announcement of a planned loss and damage (L&D) fund to help low-emitting nations recover from the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme events. While this is a major achievement, determining which nations receive money from this fund will be extremely difficult. Some of the L&D fund is likely to be used to pay towards the cost of reconstruction and resilience building after extreme events in low-income regions. Given that extreme event attribution (EEA) analyses seek to provide quantitative estimates of the role of human-caused climate change for a class of events relevant to an impactful extreme, it follows that EEA has the potential to be used to determine the flows of money from L&D funds to affected nations. A full EEA ‘inventory’ could represent a useful database when examining questions of L&D globally1. However, there is a diversity of views among experts in EEA and L&D, as well as the broader community of climate scientists and impacts researchers, on the potential role EEA has to play in L&D decision-making2,3,4,5.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Stone, F. Lott and F. Otto for useful discussions. A.D.K. and M.R.G. acknowledge the Australian Government National Environmental Science Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Andrew D. King

  2. CSIRO Climate Science Centre, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Michael R. Grose

  3. African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Joyce Kimutai

  4. Kenya Meteorological Department, Nairobi, Kenya

    Joyce Kimutai

  5. Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), De Bilt, the Netherlands

    Izidine Pinto

  6. Te Aka Mātuatua School of Science, University of Waikato, Hillcrest, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Luke J. Harrington

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A.D.K. conceived the paper and led the writing. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

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Andrew D. King.

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King, A.D., Grose, M.R., Kimutai, J. et al. Event attribution is not ready for a major role in loss and damage.
Nat. Clim. Chang. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01651-2

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  • Published: 17 April 2023

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01651-2

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