My first reaction to the devastation in Pakistan from the floods was this could be a turning point where a low-carbon nation will sue the nations of the industrialized world for greenhouse gas emissions.
Now, there's top climate scientists saying the same thing.
More below the fold.
In the New Scientist article, Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said:
"We know that high sea-surface temperatures and large amounts of moist air over the Indian Ocean helped bring about the Pakistani floods and the heatwave in Russia. It should be possible to determine how great a role human climate change played in these events."
The scientists say they can "run thousands of simulations of the climate as it is and as it would have been without human influences, then compare the number of times a given event occurs in each scenario."
This may give a country or other locale affected by an extreme weather event evidence to build a case against either the worse C02 emitting countries, the oil and gas industries, or both.
I call it the "peeing upstream" complaint — that the negligent actions of one party have led to intolerable consequences for another. We’ve seen similar cases in this country with second-hand smoke, for instance.
Of course, Pakistan is unlikely to take such a step. The Pakistani government is far too dependent upon the American taxpayer for its security and stability to threaten its relationship with the U.S., until recently the world’s largest CO2 emitter.
But at some point, a non-carbon nation may be successful in bringing a lawsuit against carbon-spewing ones.
For a little more on this subject, visit my Green Asteroid blog.
If you’d like to make a donation to help the Pakistani children, please visit here.