A new study could strengthen climate laws to charge polluters

In 2023, the Winooski river of Vermont overturned its banks, kissing the Green Farm bridge that breaks it. The river water spilled on the marble floors of the state house. Up to nine inches of rain fell in 48 hours, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

A year later, the Vermont promulgated the law on climate change, which maintains oil and gas companies financially responsible for climate damage in the state. Similar legislation was adopted in New York in 2024 and is pending in California, Maryland and Massachusetts.

Under the underlying of laws is the science of attribution, which models a large number of scenarios using global temperature data to determine the probability that extreme weather events such as floods or heat waves are linked to emissions from oil, gas and burning coal.

A new article published Wednesday in the journal Nature extends this type of work to link the emissions of issues specific to the economic burden of extreme events.

“The petroleum industry is alarmed by state laws on the superflost of the climate and their growing popularity because it is the first policies adopted all over the world that make climate polluters pay a good part of the enormous damage caused by their products,” said Lee Wasserman, director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, the charitable foundation based in New York Superfund.

The reaction to the laws was rapid. In February, Virginia-Western and other states led by the Republicans continued their prosecution to block the New York law, saying that only the federal government could regulate the emissions. President Trump signed a decree this month calling for the laws of the “heavy and motivated ideologically” state laws and asked the Attorney General Pam Bondi to block their application.