Part of the Series
Covering Climate Now
Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.
The science used to attribute extreme weather events to climate change has advanced remarkably in recent years, allowing policy makers, judges, and the public to see clear links between disasters and the fossil fuel emissions driving climate crisis. Now, as the links become clearer, oil and gas lobbyists are scrambling to shield the industry from a wave of lawsuits and state laws seeking to hold profiteers accountable for the damage that burning fossil fuels causes to communities and public health.
Developed over the course of three years by a panel of experts, the National Academies of Sciences published a report on July 16 updating and expanding on a landmark 2016 review that found climate attribution science had made “great strides” in explaining the increasing frequency of extreme weather such as heat waves, floods, extended droughts, and wildfires in the context of climate disruption caused by humans. The link between global warming and individual violent storms is less clear — but not in the tropics, where warming ocean temperatures are known to likely intensify hurricanes and cyclones.
The report found improvements over the past decade in datasets and model simulations that scientists use to determine whether climate change made an extreme weather event more likely or intense. Scientists are also improving the accuracy of “storyline event attribution,” which focuses on whether climate disruption shaped the physical processes leading up to a damaging event.
Uncertainties remain, but the report from one of the nation’s most trusted research institutions affirms that scientists can reliably link specific disasters to oil and gas emissions, according to Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for the Make Polluters Pay campaign.
“For years the fossil fuel industry has argued in court that climate change is just too global and too complex to connect specific harms to individual polluters, but in recent years attribution science has changed that,” DiPaola said in an interview. “This report only confirms that this field has matured into an incredibly rigorous scientific discipline, and it gives courts stronger evidence to evaluate the real-world consequences of fossil fuel pollution.”
More than 40 cities and states have filed lawsuits against major fossil fuel companies for climate-related damages. The specifics vary, but in many cases the plaintiffs argue that companies including Chevron, ExxonMobil, and BP engaged in deceptive advertising by failing to inform the public about research linking the burning of fossil fuels to the climate crisis. Lawsuits filed by California, Maine, New Jersey, and multiple municipalities also argue that air pollution is a “public nuisance” under state laws.
“It does not decide these cases, but the [National Academies] report makes it more difficult for the industry and its lawyers to argue that the science is not ready for the courtroom,” DiPaola said. “It just gives judges a better foundation for finding causation.”
Two dozen states have also introduced or passed into law what are known as “climate superfund bills,” which create funds paid into by fossil fuel polluters that states can use to pay for the costs of environmental cleanup and fixing infrastructure damaged by extreme weather attributed to climate change. The American Petroleum Institute, a top lobbying group for the industry, lists opposing state-level superfund bills as one of its top political priorities for 2026.
“The industry sees reports like this coming out from leaders in the scientific field, and they would rather ask lawmakers to shut down the climate superfund bills entirely and the lawsuits entirely,” DiPaola said.
Energy In Depth, a pro-industry publication and project of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, published an op-ed on July 14 claiming the “fingerprints of climate litigation activists” are “all over” the National Academies report, which should be viewed as “the latest deliverable in a well-funded litigation campaign.”
With droughts causing water shortages while deadly floods and heat waves increase in frequency, fossil fuel supporters in the Republican Party are addressing the climate crisis by attempting to shift the blame. The fight burst into public view over the past week as devastating wildfires in Canada burned out of control, filling skies across much of the Midwest and Northeast U.S. with smoke that forced millions of people indoors.
Experts say wildfires are a natural feature of Canada’s forests, and the recent outbreak likely resulted from a mix of human activity and persistent heat and drought driven by climate disruption, which makes fires bigger, hotter, and more destructive. However, President Donald Trump attacked Canada on July 17 over the wildfire smoke that drifted across the U.S. border in a nonsensical online post. Republicans in Congress also threatened to impose economic sanctions on Canada for “exporting” smoke, exacerbating tensions over Trump’s tariffs and antics on the world stage.
In 2023, a landmark study from the Union of Concerned Scientists directly linked coal, oil, and gas companies to worsening forest fires in the western United States. The study found that nearly 20 million acres — or 37 percent of the total area burned by forest fires in the western United States and southwestern Canada since 1986 — can be attributed to heat-trapping air pollution released by the 88 largest fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers globally.
Forest fires are increasing in scale and occurring earlier in the season. In 2025, the number of people displaced from their homes by forest fires globally reached nearly 500 million, the highest level since 2020. Carly Phillips, a senior scientist with the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the organization’s forest fire attribution study and others like it, such as the new one from the National Academies, are critical pieces of scientific evidence for holding big polluters accountable.
“Attribution science has been a flashpoint, so that affirmation of the rigor and robustness of this science from the National Academies is key for affirming the utility of this type of research,” Phillips told Truthout.
Phillips pointed to a recent piece from the Wall Street Journal editorial board attacking the National Academies report as politically compromised. Phillips said the editorial follows a decades-long disinformation campaign against climate attribution science waged by the industry. The Journal accuses unnamed “trial lawyers” of staging a “climate coup” at the National Academies.
“It’s part of a broader pattern of attempting to discredit the National Academies and attribution science broadly, not for the science but for the process,” Phillips said. “But there’s no evidence. They are manufacturing controversy where there is none.”
DiPaola said Big Oil companies have increasingly turned to conservative media outlets and Republicans lawmakers to shield them from public scrutiny as science connects the deadly heat waves, fires, and floods in the headlines to climate disruption caused by fossil fuel pollution. In press releases and public communications, both the American Petroleum Institute and GOP lawmakers describe the state-level lawsuits and superfund bills as “extremist.”
“Attribution science is becoming more and more precise at the same time these liabilities cases are moving closer to discovery — and at the same time that industry is begging leaders in Congress to throw them out,” DiPaola said.
Big Oil executives would likely not want judges ordering them to hand over internal documents and testify under oath after repeated investigations revealed that Chevron and other companies knew that burning fossil fuels caused global warming decades ago but failed to warn the public and policy makers, DiPaola pointed out.
On April 17, Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyoming) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced legislation in Congress to “protect American energy from leftist legal crusades” and the climate superfund laws introduced by Democratic lawmakers in two dozen states. At the state level, dark money right-wing groups are distributing model legislation that would quash climate accountability funds and lawsuits.
In a statement, Hageman said “state legislators and environmental extremists” are trying to “scapegoat” fossil fuel firms. The presidents of two lobbying groups — the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and American Petroleum Institute — thanked Cruz and Hageman in a joint statement. After all, the climate superfund bills alone are “designed to inflict multi-billion-dollar penalties for past emissions and other alleged contributions to ‘climate change,’” according to a press release from Hageman’s office.
Vermont and New York were the first states to sign climate superfund bills into law. New York plans to recover $75 billion over 25 years from fossil fuel companies to pay for climate damage, and Vermont is still assessing the damage attributed to specific companies, according to DiPaola. Meanwhile, conservative lawmakers recently passed laws shielding fossil fuel companies from climate lawsuits in Utah, Tennessee, Iowa, and Oklahoma. Similar legislation is on the move in Louisiana.
Phillips said fights over who will pay for climate damages could have been avoided if the fossil fuel industry had been honest in decades past with the public and politicians about the dangers of burning fossil fuels, prompting an earlier start to a transition to clean energy. Instead, the industry and its allies continue to wage a disinformation campaign with the goal of “deceiving the public” and obstructing climate action.
“It did not have to be this way,” Phillips said. “It did not have to get to the point where these extreme storms and extended droughts are driving this level of harm and destruction.”
An important fundraising appeal: 24 Hours to raise $23,000
Truthout is one of only a few platforms for justice-oriented, grassroots journalism. Today, as political censorship from the right intensifies, we have no choice but to ask for your help.
We are fundraising right now to cover our basic operating expenses. If you can support Truthout with a one-time or monthly donation, you will make a significant impact on our work. Anything you can do makes a difference — we appreciate your support.