person

Dr Rupert Stuart-Smith

Deputy Director & Senior Researcher in Climate Science and the Law, Oxford Sustainable Law Programme

Profile

Dr Rupert Stuart-Smith is the Deputy Director and a Senior Research Fellow in Climate Science and the Law at the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme.

In his research, Rupert advances methods in attribution science to shed new light on the impacts of climate change on health, glaciers, and extreme weather events. In 2025, he co-led the development of guidance for research attributing health impacts to climate change. He also studies the implications of developments in climate science for state and corporate actors’ legal duties. Rupert publishes on the implications of burgeoning climate litigation on climate-related financial risk.

Rupert's recent publications include research on legal scrutiny of states’ dependence on CO₂removal to meet climate targets, the impact of climate change on glacial retreat in Peru in the context of a high-profile lawsuit (Lliuya v RWE) and the evidence needed to substantiate causation arguments in climate-related legal actions. His research has been published in leading scientific journals including Science, Nature Geoscience and Nature Climate Change.

Rupert regularly provides scientific advice and training for lawyers and judges. He has worked as an expert advisor to the Interamerican Court of Human Rights, and a consultant for the Foundation for International Law for the Environment, Climate Analytics and Vivid Economics. Rupert holds a DPhil and BA(Hons) in Geography from the University of Oxford. Rupert has also received the Alfred Steers Prize from the Royal Geographical Society.

Project

Climate science & the law

Publications

Journal (25)

Open

Rajamani L and others, ‘Legal Guardrails on States’ Dependence on Carbon Dioxide Removal to Meet Climate Targets’ [2026] Climate Policy

Stuart-Smith R and Wetzer T, ‘The Narrowing Legal Operating Space for Climate Action’ (2026) 392 BMJ

Lisi G and Stuart-Smith R, ‘Medical Evidence Drove Legal Action to Clean up the Air We Breathe—climate Justice May Be Next’ (2025) 391 British Medical Journal

Carlson C and others, ‘Health Losses Attributed to Anthropogenic Climate Change’ [2025] Nature Climate Change 1

Stuart-Smith R and others, ‘Refining Methods for Attributing Health Impacts to Climate Change: A Heat-Mortality Case Study in Zürich’ (2025) 178 Climatic Change

Stuart-Smith R and others, ‘Implications of States’ Dependence on Carbon Dioxide Removal for Achieving the Paris Temperature Goal’ [2025] Climate Policy

Ebi K and others, ‘Considerations for Improving the Relevance, Use, and Robustness of Projections of the Health Risks of Climate Change’ (2025) 9 Lancet Planetary Health e442

Mora C and others, ‘Attributing Global Impacts of Local Extremes to Climate Change for Improving Loss and Damage Estimates’ (2025) 20 Environmental Research Letters

Perkins-Kirkpatrick S and others, ‘Frontiers in Attributing Climate Extremes and Associated Impacts’ (2024) 6 Frontiers in Climate

Jézéquel A and others, ‘Broadening the Scope of Anthropogenic Influence in Extreme Event Attribution’ (2024) 3 Environmental Research: Climate

Carlson C and others, ‘Health Losses Attributable to Anthropogenic Climate Change’ 2024.08.07.24311640

Schuldt N, Stuart-Smith R and Wetzer T, ‘Strategies for Navigating Competing Climate Science in Human Rights Courts’ (2024) 3 PLOS Climate

Hale T and others, ‘Regulating Net Zero: From Groundswell to Ground Rules’ (2024) 14 Nature Climate Change 306

Wetzer T, Stuart-Smith R and Dibley A, ‘Climate Risk Assessments Must Engage With the Law’ (2024) 383 Science 152

Stuart-Smith R and others, ‘Comment on ‘Attribution of Modern Andean Glacier Mass Loss Requires Successful Hindcast of Pre-Industrial Glacier Changes’ by Sebastian Lüning et Al.’ (2023) 133 Journal of South American Earth Sciences

Stuart-Smith R and others, ‘Legal Limits to the Use of CO2 Removal’ (2023) 382 Science 772

Woodward A and Stuart-smith R, ‘Invited Perspective: Stranger Danger—health-Damaging Variable Temperatures’ (2023) 131 Environmental Health Perspectives

Stuart-Smith R and others, ‘Comment on ‘attribution of Modern Andean Glacier Mass Loss Requires Successful Hindcast of Pre-Industrial Glacier Changes’ by Sebastian Lüning et Al’ [2023] Journal of South American Earth Sciences 104401

Otto F and others, ‘Law, Justice and the Role of Courts in Changing the Social Superstructure Narrative in Climate Litigation’ (2023) 14 Global Policy 416

Otto F and others, ‘Causality and the Fate of Climate Litigation: The Role of the Social Superstructure Narrative’ (2022) 13 Global Policy 736

Clarke B and others, ‘Extreme Weather Impacts of Climate Change: An Attribution Perspective’ (2022) 1 Environmental Research: Climate

Boyd E and others, ‘Loss and Damage from Climate Change: A New Climate Justice Agenda’ (2021) 4 One Earth 1365

Stuart-Smith R and others, ‘Filling the Evidentiary Gap in Climate Litigation’ (2021) 11 Nature Climate Change 651

Stuart-Smith R and others, ‘Increased Outburst Flood Hazard from Lake Palcacocha Due to Human-Induced Glacier Retreat’ (2021) 14 Nature Geoscience 85

Ebi K and others, ‘Using Detection and Attribution to Examine How Climate Change Is Affecting Health’ (2020) 39 Health Affairs 2168

Chapter (1)

Open

Stuart-Smith R, Otto F and Wetzer T, ‘Liability for Climate Change Impacts: The Role of Climate Attribution Science’, Corporate Accountability and Liability for Climate Change (Edward Elgar Publishing 2024)

Thesis / dissertation (1)

Open

Stuart-Smith R, ‘Legal Liability for Climate Change Impacts: Strengthening the Scientific Basis’

Other (12)

Open

Corpuz B and others, ‘Bridging Climate-Health Attribution Science and Health-Sector Practice’ (2026)

Vicedo Cabrera A and others, ‘On the Use of Different Climate Counterfactuals in Health Impact Attribution’ (2026)

Stuart-Smith R, ‘Are We Closing in on True ‘end-to-End’ Attribution?’ (2026)

Byers E and others, ‘Climate Overshoot Legacy: Distinguishing Transient Biophysical Change from Irreversible Socioeconomic Loss’ (2026)

Ginesta M and others, ‘Attribution of the Impacts of the 2024 Extreme Floods in Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil, to Climate Change ’ (2026)

Beaulieu J and others, ‘Evidence for Corporate Climate Accountability: Integrating Science, Law, and Policy’ (2026) Copernicus Publications

Kawiecki A and others, ‘Attribution of Dengue Outbreak Risk to Climate Change-Driven Changes in Extreme Events in Colombia’ (2026)

Ermis S and others, ‘Economic Damages Attributable to Climate Change in the Northeastern United States from 2011 Storm Irene’ (2026) Copernicus Publications

Lüthi S and others, ‘Heat-Mortality Impacts under 1.5°C Overshoot Pathways’ (2026)

Walker-Crawford N and others, ‘Attribution in Action: Causal Chains in Climate Litigation’ (2025) Copernicus Publications

Ginesta M and others, ‘Impact Attribution for Climate Law: The Case of Storm Irene’ (2025) Copernicus Publications

Pietroiusti R and others, ‘Children Disproportionally Exposed to Attributable Heatwaves at Low-Latitude Low-Income Countries’ (2025) Copernicus Publications