Establishing causal links between greenhouse gas emissions, climate impacts and legal corporate responsibility is one of the most complex and challenging issues in the contemporary climate governance landscape. From 27 to 29 April 2026, a closed workshop held at Villa Vigoni on Lake Como in Italy brought together leading experts to address the hurdle of climate causation through a vivid, interdisciplinary exchange between climate science and law.
The Equinox workshop, “Forging the Causal Chain: Science, Law and Corporate Climate Responsibility”, organised under the EU-funded MAGICA Project, convened climate scientists, legal scholars, judges and litigation practitioners. Participants analysed how climate evidence can withstand judicial scrutiny, and how attribution science can be translated into legally relevant thresholds of causation. The workshop explored how the logics of science and law can be brought into dialogue, examining the different links in the causal chain to identify where connections are robust and where they remain fragile, and whether a shared grammar of climate causation can emerge.
The three-day workshop sparked some emerging discussions.
A central tension persists between probabilistic attribution science and legal causation: while science can quantify increased climate risk with confidence levels, courts must still translate these probabilistic findings into strict legal proof linking specific harms to responsibility. Climate causation becomes increasingly fragile across scales, particularly at regional and local levels where data gaps and compounded uncertainties require synthesising multiple scientific inputs.
The discussions also uncovered that while emissions accounting from major fossil fuel producers can support general causation, establishing specific causation remains difficult due to foreseeability standards, evidentiary burdens, and the disconnect between global emissions and localised damages. In this regard, case law shows that attribution science can play a significant role in informing claims of liability based on proportional contribution, however, evidentiary challenges involved in linking global emissions to specific and sufficiently imminent harm are still present.
Experts stressed that climate litigation is progressively reshaping traditional causation doctrines towards layered approaches incorporating necessity, sufficiency, and probabilistic reasoning. At the same time, causal standards vary across legal domains: planning and environmental law often apply more flexible, forward-looking thresholds, whereas tort law remains more restrictive, particularly regarding Scope 3 emissions and global-to-local causal links.
Within this context, the panels noted that, despite growing doctrinal flexibility, causal indeterminacy remains a core challenge. Existing legal tools—such as burden shifting —may help address diffuse harms, but require clearer thresholds for contribution and more precise identification of responsible actor groups. The experts also called attention to emerging questions of unlawfulness and responsibility, which have been framed temporally, discussing when emissions become legally wrongful based on foreseeability, knowledge, and corporate conduct.
The high-level dialogues emphasised that, although courts often rely heavily on synthesised scientific assessments (notably IPCC reports), they still face challenges in managing their complexity. This highlights the need for clearer scientific communication, stronger standards for expert evidence, and better interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists, lawyers and judges.
Sessions were chaired, in turn, by Giulia Galluccio, Director of the Advanced Training and Education Center and Vice-Chair of Joint Programming Initiative Connecting Climate Knowledge for Europe (JPI Climate), and by Ivano Alogna, Senior Researcher in Climate Law at ATEC and Senior Research Fellow in Environmental and Climate Change Law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL).
The three-day seminar included talks by CMCC President, Antonio Navarra, and Scientific Director, Giulio Boccaletti. Dr Navarra participated in the first session of the workshop, emphasising the growing efforts to formally identify causal relationships in complex systems. He noted that advances in climate modelling are enabling us to shift our focus from detecting patterns to understanding causal mechanisms, a shift that is supported by increasingly robust and applicable theoretical frameworks. On the second day, Dr Boccaletti participated in a panel discussion with Justice Brian Preston (Chief Judge, Land and Environment Court of New South Wales) and Prof Jacqueline Peel (Professor of Law and Director of Melbourne Climate Futures, University of Melbourne). Dr Boccaletti noted that climate treaties from the 1990s were based on assumptions that are now being challenged by rapid environmental change, and argued that legal and scientific approaches must shift towards Earth system models that capture the full range of interactions, including also emissions from natural processes.
ATEC is the hub for this conversation, as Climate Law & Litigation is one of its knowledge incubators. The initiative aims to promote cutting-edge research that bridges the gap between scientific knowledge and legal practice. It provides legal practitioners, policymakers, and researchers with the critical expertise and science-based approach needed to navigate the ever-changing legal landscape of climate change.
Upcoming activities are already on the horizon. The summer school “Climate Change Law and Science: Exploring the Interplay Between Legal Systems and Climate Change Science,” organised by ATEC’s Future Earth Research School (FERS), will take place at Villa Vigoni from 20 to 25 July. Through expert lectures, interactive discussions, and hands-on workshops, the course will offer participants a critical perspective on the law–science interface and reflect on emerging governance challenges. Further information and registration: https://www.cmcc.it/lectures_conferences/climate-change-law-science-exploring-the-interplay-between-legal-systems-and-climate-change-science
