Many people still think there is a strong relationship between human-caused climate change and extreme weather events, such as the devastating flooding happened in Tasmania last June. By contrary others don’t, like Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who said that “we cannot attribute any particular storm to global warming”. Scientist are analysing the influence of increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere on extreme events and this is a field of science called “attribution research”. There are groups of scientists who have been able to conclude that the relationship between human behaviour and weather events exists. For instance, a team of scientist have said that human-caused climate change had probably doubled the chance of Louisiana to be hit by the huge downpour in last August, which killed 13 people and damaged about 60,000 homes. Dr Andrew King, after a research concerning the record warm sea temperatures that caused the mass bleaching of corals on the Great Barrier Reef last summer, said that “ We found that the warm sea temperatures were made at least 175 times more likely because of climate change”. By contrary, in a world without the extra greenhouse gases, we might expect to see those ocean temperatures once every 1,000 years, if at all. From torrential downpours to record ocean temperatures, more and more studies are concluding that human behaviours have a huge influence on natural events. Another important research demonstrates that without the added greenhouse gases, Australia’s record hot 2013 would only have come along once every 12,000 years while now, thanks to the burning of fossil fuels, we might expect a record breaker every six years. Other experts, like Dr Sophie Lewis, underline the difference between “causing” and event and “influencing” an event. However, it is still a debated matter, and there are many scientists which don’t agree, exhorting not to reach too hurried conclusions. The gLAWcal Team POREEN project Thursday, 15 September 2016 (Source: The Guardian) This news has been realized by gLAWcal—Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development in collaboration with University Institute of European Studies (IUSE) in Turin (Italy) which is beneficiary of the European Union Research Executive Agency IRSES Project “Partnering Opportunities between Europe and China in the Renewable Energies and Environmental iNdustries” - POREEN, Work-package 4.