We can finally measure the damage each new coal, gas or oil project will do to people and nature

Until recently, it was challenging to determine the extent of harm and additional warming caused by individual fossil fuel projects, despite governments approving them. Fossil fuel companies and government agencies often dismissed the impact by using the "drop in the ocean" defense, arguing that their emissions were insignificant compared to the global total. However, this defense is no longer valid.

Recent advancements in attribution science have enabled scientists to accurately identify the role of climate change in exacerbating disasters and extreme weather events. A new open-source tool called the Carbon Impacts Tracer has been developed, which not only measures the warming impact of a new project but also quantifies its damage across eight areas, including crop losses, heat wave deaths in Europe, and coral colony destruction on the Great Barrier Reef.

The tool works by connecting the dots between the emissions produced, the extra warming caused, and the resulting damage to people and the environment. It uses a linear relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming, as outlined in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report. For every trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted, the globe warms by approximately 0.45°C.

The Carbon Impacts Tracer utilizes this relationship to estimate the additional warming caused by a project's publicized carbon emissions. It then calculates the damage across the eight specified areas, using only published studies that meet a high evidentiary threshold. The tool currently focuses on eight types of damage, with plans to expand the evidence base in the future.

Using the Carbon Impacts Tracer, users can assess the impact of five proposed Australian fossil fuel projects and one in the United Kingdom. For instance, Woodside's proposed Browse to North West Shelf gas project would add 1,597 megatonnes of CO₂ over its lifetime, leading to a warming effect of 0.00072°C, which translates to nearly 200,000 additional people experiencing an extra week of dangerous heat every year. The tool also tracks the future damage caused by major fossil fuel companies between 2024 and 2050.

By quantifying the connection between emissions and resulting damage, the Carbon Impacts Tracer provides crucial scientific evidence to hold fossil fuel companies and governments accountable for the harm their projects cause. This tool enables communities, organizations, insurers, and decision-makers to attribute legal responsibility for climate harms and assess climate impacts more effectively.

As fossil fuel production and expansion increasingly face legal scrutiny, the Carbon Impacts Tracer offers a vital tool for measuring and understanding the true cost of these projects.