Climate Attribution Science: The Case for Corporate Accountability

Climate attribution science has reached a tipping point. New "end-to-end" models can now trace specific companies' carbon emissions directly to the climate disasters devastating communities thousands of miles away. This is no longer a concept as it's already in court.

December 2021 and Pujianto watched the waves rise around his home on Pari Island, Indonesia. By dawn, his walls were collapsing, his well contaminated with seawater. The tidal floods have returned dozens of times since. Now he's suing cement giant Holcim - headquartered 12,000 kilometers away in Switzerland - for compensation.

His case represents a new wave of climate litigation powered by advanced attribution models that map a robust chain of causation from corporate emissions to local harms. In 2022, researchers Christopher Callahan and Justin Mankin produced the first end-to-end attribution study. Their 2025 research traced extreme heat events between 1991-2020 back to the 111 most carbon-polluting companies, finding they caused between $12 trillion and $49 trillion in economic losses globally.

Two breakthroughs enabled this precision. "Reduced complexity" climate models simulate processes more efficiently, running hundreds of counterfactual scenarios without the need for supercomputers. Smarter emissions accounting now recognizes that a gigatonne of carbon emitted today, when carbon sinks are saturated and oceans more acidic, has different consequences than emissions from 1850.

For Pujianto's case, research found with 99 percent certainty that human CO2 emissions caused an additional 16-26 centimeters of sea level rise on Pari Island during the December 2021 flood. Without emissions from carbon majors like Holcim, water probably wouldn't have entered his house.

In December 2025, the Cantonal Court of Zug, Switzerland, accepted Pujianto's lawsuit - the first time a Swiss court admitted a climate case against a large corporation for trial. Over 70 percent of historical emissions can be attributed to just 78 companies. If even one polluter-pays case succeeds, it could unlock similar claims worldwide.

As Pujianto says: "Companies with huge emissions should be held accountable by law." For climate advocates and communicators, attribution science has finally given us the narrative we've been waiting for - stories backed by bulletproof science that connect corporate emissions directly to human suffering.

Source: New Scientist 10 Jan 2026