From the laboratory to the courtroom: How attribution science is already driving corporate liability
Attribution science is no longer a research curiosity. It has been presented in court, accepted by judges, embedded in legislation and used to calculate the financial liability of named companies for named categories of harm. Executives who have not yet engaged with this development are behind the curve.
The translation from science to law
The transition of attribution science from peer-reviewed journals to courtrooms and legislatures has been faster than most corporate legal teams anticipated. The reason is structural: the legal frameworks that govern environmental and climate liability – tort law, nuisance, negligence, human rights obligations – have always required a causal link between a defendant's conduct and a plaintiff's harm. What attribution science does is supply that causal link with a level of scientific rigour that courts can assess and accept. It does not change the law. It changes what the law can reach.
Legal academics Rupert Stuart-Smith, Friederike Otto and Thom Wetzer have published detailed analysis of how attribution science supports causal argumentation in climate litigation, noting that the science is now 'central to legal debates on the causal links between human activities, global climate change and impacts on human and natural systems.' They argue that 'attribution science is increasingly capable of translating climate change into individualised legal accountability, opening pathways for liability and compensation through tort doctrines like nuisance, negligence and failure to adapt.'[1]
Lliuya v. RWE – a decade in the making
The case that best illustrates the journey from science to courtroom is Lliuya v. RWE, decided by the Higher Regional Court of Hamm in Germany on 28 May 2025. The case had been running for nearly a decade. Saúl Luciano Lliuya, a Peruvian farmer and mountain guide from Huaraz, filed his claim against RWE – Germany's largest greenhouse gas emitter – in 2015. His argument was straightforward but legally unprecedented: RWE's historical carbon emissions had contributed to the melting of the Palcaraju glacier above his home, increasing the volume of Lake Palcacocha and raising the risk of a catastrophic glacial lake outburst flood that could destroy his property and community.[2]
Lliuya sought partial damages proportionate to RWE's share of global industrial emissions since 1751, as calculated using the Carbon Majors database – approximately 0.47% of the total adaptation costs, amounting to roughly €17,000. Initially dismissed on causation grounds by the Essen Regional Court, the case gained historic momentum when the Higher Regional Court of Hamm indicated in 2017 that it did not agree with the lower court's reasoning and allowed the claim to proceed to an evidentiary phase. A judicial site visit to Huaraz took place in 2022. Evidentiary hearings were held in 2025.[2]
What the Hamm court actually decided
The May 2025 judgment dismissed Lliuya's claim – but the grounds of dismissal and the principles established in the course of reaching that decision are what matter for corporate governance purposes. The court found that Lliuya could not establish a sufficiently imminent flood risk to his specific property to meet the legal threshold under Section 1004 of the German Civil Code, which requires a minimum level of probability of harm. It did not find that the science was wrong, that attribution was an invalid basis for liability or that geographical distance between RWE's operations and the location of the harm defeated the claim.[3]
On the contrary: the court confirmed that, based on attribution science, it could compare RWE's contribution to global emissions to the causal contributions of other companies and countries. It confirmed that the operations of RWE's subsidiaries were properly attributed to RWE as the parent company. It confirmed that significant geographical distance between a defendant's emissions and the location of the damage was not sufficient in itself to defeat a claim. And it confirmed – for the first time in a European higher court – that major emitters can in principle be held civilly liable under national law for climate-related harms caused anywhere in the world. As RWE's plaintiff's attorney Dr Roda Verheyen stated after the verdict: 'For the first time in history, a higher court in Europe has ruled that large emitters can be held responsible for the consequences of their greenhouse gas emissions. German civil law is applicable in the context of the climate crisis.'[4]
The claim failed. The principle survived. That distinction is what boards need to understand.
Milieudefensie v. Shell – duty of care established
Running in parallel with Lliuya is the Milieudefensie v. Shell litigation in the Netherlands, which has established a complementary but distinct legal principle. In November 2024, the Hague Court of Appeal confirmed that Shell carries a legal duty of care to mitigate climate risk under Dutch law, while overturning the lower court's order requiring Shell to reduce its CO₂ emissions by 45% compared to 2019 levels before 2030. Attribution science and carbon budget analyses were central to the court's assessment of Shell's duty of care.[5]
In February 2025, Milieudefensie announced it would appeal to the Dutch Supreme Court, arguing that the Court of Appeal applied too narrow a standard. In May 2025, Milieudefensie also launched a new claim against Shell specifically targeting investment in new oil and gas fields and seeking emissions reduction targets aligned with the 1.5°C pathway for the period 2035 to 2050. On the same day it served a writ of summons on ING Bank, seeking reductions in the bank's financed emissions and a halt to financing companies developing new fossil fuel projects. The litigation is explicitly extending from producers to the financial institutions that fund them.
Attribution science in legislation
Attribution science has also moved directly into statute. The Vermont Climate Superfund Act, passed in 2024, empowers the state attorney general to compel major fossil fuel companies to help cover the cost of disasters that can be scientifically linked to their emissions. Vermont's law was partially informed by expert testimony from Professor Justin Mankin – one of the authors of the 2025 Nature study – and an early version of the attribution framework that would be published in that paper. The Carbon Majors Database is specifically identified as the proposed tool to quantify each company's liability under the Act.[6]
New York has passed a comparable Climate Superfund Act. Both laws are subject to legal challenges, but their passage demonstrates that attribution science has moved beyond academic debate into binding legislative instruments. Over 60 cases worldwide are currently seeking to hold companies liable for climate-related losses and damages and as the Grantham Research Institute at LSE has noted, 'this verdict adds strength to a growing field of climate litigation... confirming the legal foundation for corporate climate liability.'[7]
The significance for all sectors
It would be a mistake to read this as a problem confined to fossil fuel companies. The attribution framework being developed and tested in these cases is not inherently limited to oil and gas. Any company with a significant carbon footprint – from steel and cement to aviation, agriculture, food and beverage and financial services – is a potential target as the science extends and the legal frameworks mature. The cases being decided now are establishing the principles that will govern the next generation of claims, which will be broader in their targets and more refined in their scientific foundations.
The boards and executives who pay attention to these developments now – who understand what the science has established, what the courts have accepted and what the legislation has mandated – will be in a position to build governance responses that are proportionate and timely. Those who wait until a claim lands on their desk will find that the legal and scientific landscape is much further developed than they assumed.
References
[1] Stuart-Smith, R., Otto, F.E.L. and Wetzer, T., 'Liability for Climate Change Impacts: the Role of Climate Attribution Science', in De Jong et al. (eds), Corporate Responsibility and Liability in Relation to Climate Change (Intersentia, 2022). Available at SSRN. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4226257
[2] Columbia Law School Climate Law Blog, 'What Lliuya v. RWE Means for Climate Change Loss and Damage Claims' (19 June 2025). https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2025/06/19/what-lliuya-v-rwe-means-for-climate-change-loss-and-damage-claims/
[3] Loyens & Loeff, 'ESG Litigation Update: The Notable (German) Lliuya v. RWE Ruling and Some Dutch Legal Perspectives' (2025). https://www.loyensloeff.com/insights/news--events/news/esg-litigation-update-the-notable-german-lliuya-v.-rwe-ruling-and-some-dutch-legal-perspectives/
[4] Euronews, 'German Court Dismisses Climate Suit Against RWE but Leaves the Door Open' (28 May 2025). https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/05/28/the-mountains-have-won-german-court-dismisses-climate-suit-against-rwe-but-leaves-the-door
[5] Hausfeld, 'Summer Review: A Watershed Moment for Climate Litigation' (26 August 2025). https://www.hausfeld.com/what-we-think/perspectives-blogs/summer-review-a-watershed-moment-for-climate-litigation
[6] Dartmouth College, 'Study Lays Out Scientific Path to Recouping Climate Costs' (23 April 2025). https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/04/study-lays-out-scientific-path-recouping-climate-costs
[7] Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE, 'Institute Responds to Lliuya v RWE Verdict' (28 May 2025). https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/institute-responds-to-lliuya-v-rwe-verdict/