Moving beyond climate attribution: A shared reflection on the purpose, usefulness, and future of impact attribution

Climate attribution is a rapidly evolving field quantifying the effect of climate change on extreme weather events. Findings from attribution studies often fuel news headlines to inform on the consequences of climate change. Moreover, the field of climate attribution has become an important knowledge base to build our understanding of how the likelihood and intensity of extreme events is affected by climate change. However, the applicability of climate attribution for allocating Loss & Damage funds, climate litigation cases, and informing adaptation decisions remains a matter of debate. For example for adaptation planning, Osaka & Bellamy (2020) showcase diverging views on the usefulness of climate attribution between scientists, stakeholders, and citizens. Other studies argue that by purely focusing on meteorological drivers, climate attribution ignores other, perhaps more impactful, drivers of disasters, such as unplanned urban expansion into flood-prone areas.

A newer field, rising from climate attribution, is the field of impact attribution that aims to quantify the effect of climate change on impact, thereby including exposure and vulnerability. It can be argued that propagating extreme weather events to impact aligns closer with the lived experience of society, thereby providing a more holistic analysis. By including other components of risk, one could argue that impact attribution becomes useful for adaptation, while climate attribution might be more useful for incentivizing climate mitigation.

During this session, we invite you to reflect on the purpose, usefulness, and future directions of impact attribution. Key questions include: Does impact attribution complement or replace climate attribution? Should it incorporate non-climate drivers, and is it feasible for all hazard types, including compound events? What is needed for the field to reach its full potential? In a rapidly developing field where much remains open, structured reflection on these foundations is not a distraction from progress, but essential for guiding it.