The issue is one of attribution: can we trace the cause of climate change to individual weather events? A few decades ago, this was not possible at all. But researchers have developed tools that allow them to determine the probability that various events will occur, with and without the impact of our greenhouse gas emissions. And so it has become clear that some of the most extreme events would not have occurred without our induced warming.
That clarity has allowed other researchers to link the financial losses from catastrophic weather events to the impact of fossil fuels produced by individual companies. If those studies are widely accepted as legitimate scientific work, judges will be forced to admit them as evidence in any lawsuits against said companies.
Many lawsuits have been filed against fossil fuel companies, but most were not successful because judges decided that they were encroaching on policies that need to be set at the federal level. But things like economic damage have long been considered the province of the courts, and a direct connection between business practices and storm damage can be a difficult charge to avoid.
Those are the examples where the National Academies come in. Again, a committee formed during the Biden administration is in the process of evaluating the scientific status of attribution studies. Oil companies are so concerned that, as reported in the Politico article, they hired third parties to file for access to the emails of committee members who worked at public universities.
All of this suggests that the fight over this report is going to be intense, and that both the credibility and funding of the National Academies are likely to be under sustained attack, which could permanently damage science-based policy in the US. And it would provide another demonstration that, when even basic facts can be politicized, trying to avoid becoming a target by saying “we’re just focusing on the science” will not be a successful strategy.
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