Dr Rupert Stuart-Smith
Senior Researcher and Deputy Director, Oxford Sustainable Law Programme, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, School of Geography and the Environment
About
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, Dr Stuart-Smith 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. Dr Stuart-Smith publishes on the implications of burgeoning climate litigation on climate-related financial risk.
Dr Stuart-Smith's recent publications include research on legal scrutiny of states’ dependence on CO2 removal 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.
Dr Stuart-Smith 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. Dr Stuart-Smith holds a DPhil and BA(Hons) in Geography from the University of Oxford. He has also received the Alfred Steers Prize from the Royal Geographical Society.
Expertise
- Climate litigation
- Climate change attribution science
- Climate change impacts
- Health impacts of climate change
- Climate change mitigation
- Climate-related legal risk
- Climate-related financial risk
- Use of scientific evidence in climate lawsuits
Selected publications
- The narrowing legal operating space for climate action. Stuart-Smith, R.F., Wetzer, T. (The British Medical Journal 392:r2498. 2026)
- Refining methods for attributing health impacts to climate change: a heat-mortality case study in Zürich. Stuart-Smith, R.F., Vicedo-Cabrera, A.M., Li, S., Otto, F.E.L., Belesova, K., Haines, A., Harrington, L.J., Hess, J.J., Venkatraman, R., Wetzer, T., Woodward, A., Ebi, K.L. (Climatic Change 178, 165. 2025)
- Implications of states’ dependence on carbon dioxide removal for achieving the Paris temperature goal. Stuart-Smith, R.F., White, E., Prütz, R.M., Rogelj, J., Wetzer, T., Wood, M., Rajamani, L. (Climate Policy. 1–16. 2025)
- Health losses attributable to anthropogenic climate change. Carlson, C.J., Gibb, R.J., Mitchell, D., Stuart-Smith, R.F., Carleton, T., Lavelle, T.E., Lippi, C.A., Lukas-Sithole, M., North, M.A., Ryan, S.J., Stella Shumba, D., Chersich, M., New, M., Trisos, C.H. (Nature Climate Change. 2025)
- The attribution of human health outcomes to climate change: transdisciplinary practical guidance. Ebi, K., Haines, A., ... Stuart-Smith, R. F. (Climatic Change, 178, 143. 2025)
- Liability for Climate Change Impacts: the Role of Climate Attribution Science. In E. de Jong (Ed.), Edward Elgar. Stuart-Smith, R. F., Otto, F. E. L., & Wetzer, T. (Corporate Accountability and Liability for Climate Change, pp. 205–233. 2024)
- Climate-related risk assessments must engage with the law. Wetzer, T., Stuart-Smith, R.F., & Dibley, A. (Science, 383(6679), 152-154. 2024)
- Legal limits to the use of CO2 removal. Stuart-Smith, R.F., Rajamani, L., Rogelj, J., Wetzer, T. (Science, 382(6672), 772-774. 2023)
- Loss and damage from climate change: A new climate justice agenda. Boyd, E. et al. (One Earth, 4(10), 1365–1370. 2021)
- Filling the evidentiary gap in climate litigation. Stuart-Smith, R.F., Otto, F.E.L., Saad, A., Lisi, G., Minnerop, P., Lauta, K.C., van Zwieten, K., & Wetzer, T. (Nature Climate Change, 11(8), 651-655. 2021)
- Increased outburst flood hazard from Lake Palcacocha due to human-induced glacier retreat. Stuart-Smith, R. F., Roe, G. H., Li, S., and Allen, M. R. (Nature Geoscience, 14(2), 85–90. 2021)
- Attribution science and litigation: facilitating effective legal arguments and strategies to manage climate change damages. Stuart-Smith, R.F., et al. (Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford. 2021)
Media experience
Dr Rupert Stuart-Smith has substantial experience with print media, radio and TV. Media experience includes coverage of his research, comments on extreme weather events and other academic publications.
Recent media work
- Climate change: Courts set for rise in compensation cases (BBC News, 2021)
- New climate science could cause wave of litigation against businesses - study (The Guardian, 2021)
- 'Not just a future problem': Governments urged to plan now for more extreme weather to prevent heat deaths (Sky News, 2021)
- Human-made warming is melting Peru glacier, says study to be used in lawsuit (Reuters, 2021)
- Angst vor der Überflutung (Fear of flooding, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2021)
- Global heating to blame for threat of deadly flood in Peru, study finds (The Guardian, 2021)
- Guest post: How attribution can fill the evidence ‘gap’ in climate litigation (Carbon Brief, 2021)
- For a City Staring Down the Barrel of a Climate-Driven Flood, A New Study Could be the Smoking Gun (Inside Climate News, 2021)
Languages
English, French