A groundbreaking study from Dartmouth College has revealed that the world’s largest corporations are responsible for an estimated $28 trillion in climate damage-related damages. The research, aimed at strengthening the case for corporate accountability similar to lawsuits against tobacco companies, examined 111 major carbon-emitting companies. Remarkably, just 10 fossil fuel producers—including Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell—are responsible for over half of the total climate damage. To put this figure into perspective, $28 trillion is nearly equivalent to the entire annual economic output of the United States.
Lead researcher Christopher Callahan, now an Earth systems scientist at Stanford University, explained that the study sought to clarify the causal links behind theories of corporate liability for trillion in climate damage change. The findings arrive at a time when climate litigation is gaining momentum globally; Zero Carbon Analytics reports that 68 climate-related lawsuits have been filed worldwide, more than half in the United States.
Dartmouth climate scientist and co-author Justin Mankin emphasized that the new research directly addresses the key question of tracing specific climate damages back to individual corporations. Their answer is definitive: scientific methods can now attribute measurable harm to major carbon emitters.
Tracing Corporate Emissions Across History
To build their findings, researchers analyzed historical emissions data from these corporations, some dating back as far as 137 years. Carbon dioxide’s long atmospheric lifespan made it possible to assess cumulative damage across generations. The team used 1,000 computer simulations to model how each company’s emissions altered the Earth’s global average surface temperature compared to a hypothetical scenario without those emissions.
The study found, for example, that Chevron’s emissions alone have contributed to a 0.045°F (0.025°C) increase in global temperatures. Researchers also employed an additional 80 simulations to estimate how these emissions have intensified the five hottest days of the year and then linked that extreme heat to economic losses.
This methodology builds on scientific techniques developed over the past decade to attribute specific extreme weather events to climate change, such as the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave. According to Mankin, the research dismantles the longstanding defense that no individual company’s emissions could be singled out. “The veil of plausible deniability doesn’t exist anymore scientifically,” he said.
While many corporations, including Shell, Aramco, Gazprom, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and BP, either declined to comment or did not respond, the research has been widely praised by climate scientists for its robustness and innovation.
Scientific Backing and Future Legal Implications
Trillion in climate damage experts unaffiliated with the study have endorsed the methodology. Friederike Otto of Imperial College London called the approach “robust” and encouraged more researchers to adopt similar frameworks, believing it could strengthen future litigation against major carbon emitters. Although no climate liability lawsuits have yet succeeded, Otto expressed hope that the overwhelming scientific evidence could soon tip the scales.
Other scientists, like Stanford’s Chris Field and University of Pennsylvania’s Michael Mann, praised the study as an important step forward, though they noted that the figures might still underestimate the true scale of climate damage. Field pointed out that the enormous cumulative impact of corporate emissions now translates to tens of billions of dollars in damage annually from a single company’s activities.
Callahan concluded that the era of dismissing corporate responsibility through scientific ambiguity is over. As trillion in climate damage impacts intensify globally, the findings may serve as a powerful tool for holding major polluters financially accountable for the harm they have caused.
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