Report Finds Climate Change Is Responsible for Worst Heat Wave in Europe’s History
Deaths from this climate crime are on Big Oil’s hands
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new scientific analysis from World Weather Attribution found that the heat wave currently broiling western Europe is “the most severe ever recorded,” and that such temperatures “would have been virtually impossible” but for the global warming that has occurred in recent decades. The study comes as the death toll in Europe grows, with multiple children falling victim to the heat.
In response, Aaron Regunberg, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project, issued the following statement:
“This study confirms that this deadly heat wave is not a natural disaster. It’s a climate crime, and one that has already killed hundreds across Europe, including a three-year-old boy in France who is believed to have locked himself inside his family’s car while his father was working in their yard. French prosecutors have announced an investigation into this death, with potential charges of involuntary manslaughter for the child’s family.
“We can’t say whether or to what extent this child’s grieving parents should be held responsible for his tragic death. But we know who else should be. The lethal heat that killed their child, and so many others, is the direct, foreseeable—and, in fact, foreseen—consequence of a small number of fossil fuel companies that knowingly generated a huge portion of all the greenhouse gas emissions that are baking our planet, and fraudulently deceived the public to block solutions that could have ameliorated this catastrophe. If prosecutors want to seek justice for deaths like these, they should be pursuing the Big Oil companies that are actually responsible.”