Workshop on Forging The Causal Chain: Science, Law And Corporate Climate Responsibility

Organised within the MAGICA Project Equinox process and coordinated by the Advanced Training and Education Center (ATEC) of the CMCC Foundation, this closed workshop, taking place from 27–29 April 2026 at Villa Vigoni, Italy, will bring together a select group of experts from climate science and law to explore the links between scientific evidence and legal responsibility in the context of climate change.

The rapidly evolving field of climate science has developed increasingly robust tools to assess the contribution of anthropogenic climate change to extreme events and long-term impacts. In particular, attribution science has advanced methods to link greenhouse gas emissions to global warming trends and physical changes in the Earth system. However, these scientific findings do not always translate easily into precise causal claims regarding specific harms.

A key challenge lies in the differences between scientific and legal approaches to causation: while climate science relies on probabilistic reasoning and accounts for complex, multi-causal systems, legal frameworks often require a high degree of certainty to establish responsibility. As courts are increasingly confronted with such interdisciplinary questions, a gap remains in translating scientific evidence into legally actionable claims.

Against this background, the workshop will provide a forum for dialogue between scientists and legal experts to examine how attribution findings can inform judicial reasoning, what types of evidence can withstand legal scrutiny, and how to bridge the gap between probabilistic science and legal standards of proof.

For the full agenda of the workshop, please check the MAGICA website.