Climate Law and Attribution Science Webinar Series
Webinar 1: "From Global to Local Attribution: El Niño, Extreme Events, and the Nepal Floods"
The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law is hosting a webinar series exploring the complexities of climate attribution science in the context of current events and related legal and policy developments. Climate attribution science – which examines the causal links between human-induced climate change and specific trends, extreme events, and impacts – has become increasingly important in decisions about climate change mitigation, adaptation, risk management, and loss and damage. This webinar series will bring together scientists and legal experts to examine how attribution science can help inform legal discussions about causation and responsibility for climate-related harms.
The first webinar will explore the challenges of extreme event attribution across different scales and types of climate phenomena. Speakers will discuss attribution questions related to the current El Niño, as well as the August 2026 rock-and-ice avalanche and resulting flood disaster in Nepal, and the corresponding implications for loss and damage, adaptation, and recovery. The panel will conclude with a moderated discussion aimed at bridging scientific and legal perspectives on these topics.