Leading climate scientists urged journalists to stop attributing extreme weather primarily to El Niño, saying human-induced climate change has become the dominant driver of increasingly severe heatwaves, droughts, and other weather extremes.
The call came during a briefing organized by climate advocacy group 350.org, which brought together climate scientists and policy experts to discuss how advances in attribution science are reshaping understanding of extreme weather.
The speakers said reporting that focuses mainly on El Niño risks obscuring the role of greenhouse gas emissions in intensifying climate impacts.
Davide Faranda, research director at France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and coordinator of the ClimaMeter attribution initiative, said global temperatures have already risen by 1.4 degrees Celsius because of greenhouse gas emissions, while the current El Niño is expected to add up to another 0.25 degrees Celsius.
“The question for attribution science is no longer whether weather extreme events are enhanced or intensified by climate change, but how much,” Faranda said.
He cited ClimaMeter research showing that a June heatwave in Western Europe was up to 2.5 degrees Celsius warmer because of climate change.
Shel Winkley, senior engagement specialist and chief meteorologist at Climate Central, said El Niño should be understood as a short-term climate pattern superimposed on a warming planet.
“Climate change is the cake and El Niño is essentially the frosting on top,” Winkley said.
He said Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index found sea surface temperatures in parts of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean are now up to 500 times more likely because of climate change.
He also warned that nighttime temperatures are rising nearly twice as fast as daytime temperatures, reducing the body’s ability to recover from daytime heat.
Amira Odeh Quiñones of 350.org’s Caribbean team said the region is already experiencing the consequences.
She cited widespread drought in Puerto Rico, water rationing in some communities, temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius across the Greater Antilles, increased risks of dengue, Zika and chikungunya, and unusually warm seas that are fueling larger sargassum blooms that are affecting tourism, fisheries and coastal livelihoods.
“While we have experienced El Niño many times before in the Caribbean, it is very visible in the most recent years how the climate crisis is making this phenomenon feel more intense in the region. We are feeling extreme heat and drought and we are paying the consequences with threats to our health and effects on the household income of many struggling families,” Quiñones said.
Gareth Redmond-King, head of international programme at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said climate change is already imposing significant economic costs.
“Climate change is absolutely at the heart of the cost-of-living crisis, climate disasters kill people, destroy crops, and damage infrastructure in the short term. In the medium term, they’re building bigger risks into our global food system,” he said.
He cited analysis suggesting current climate trajectories could halve global gross domestic product later this century.
He added that African countries are already losing between 2% and 5% of GDP annually to climate impacts while spending up to 9% of their national budgets responding to climate-related disasters. In the United Kingdom, climate change added an estimated £360 to the average household’s food bill in 2022 and 2023, he said.
The speakers said El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern, but the long-term warming trend is driven by greenhouse gas emissions and remains within human control.
“We know we can do nothing about El Niño, but we know we have only one scientific solution to halting climate change, which is to cut our emissions to net zero,” Redmond-King said.
