Climate change contributed to turning Los Angeles and its surroundings into a dry tinder-box of fuel just at the time of year when strong winds make fire most dangerous, a group of scientists have found.
Thirty-two scientists working with the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group found that climate change – resulting in a world 1.3C hotter than pre-industrial times – made the dry conditions that fuelled the fires 35% more likely. A further rise in global warming to 2.6C, which is expected by 2100 on the current path, will make these conditions another 35% more likely again, they added.
“Drought conditions are more frequently pushing into winter, increasing the chance a fire will break out during strong Santa Ana winds that can turn small ignitions into deadly infernos,” said Clair Barnes, a WWA researcher from Imperial College London. “Without a faster transition away from planet-heating fossil fuels, California will continue to get hotter, drier, and more flammable,” she added.
Despite coming to power after the fires’ worst destruction, US President Donald Trump has officially begun the process of leaving the Paris climate agreement, paused all foreign climate finance, promoted fossil fuels and announced restrictions on wind power.
Climate “whiplash effect”
Over the last three weeks, fires around Los Angeles have destroyed over 10,000 homes and killed at least 28 people. While fires in the summer are common in southern California, the winter is usually too wet for fires to spread despite strong winds at that time of year.
But this winter was the driest for over 30 years, affecting the oak trees, shrubs and grasses which surround the city. These dried-out plants fuelled fires which were spread rapidly by high winds and which a fire service with inadequate water supplies struggled to contain, the study found. Fire-prone conditions have lengthened by about 23 extra days each year, the scientists said.
They concluded that, while the extension of the dry season into the windy season is linked to climate change, the role of climate change in the strength of the winds themselves is unclear and requires more research.
While this winter has been dry, the previous two winters were among the rainiest of the last few decades, promoting the growth of the plants which burned this winter. The WWA scientists suggested this may be an example of the climate-driven “whiplash effect”, where very dry and wet weather follow each other, as they did when drought gave way to flooding in East Africa in 2023.
But climate change was not the only factor that worsened the fires in the Los Angeles region. The scientists said that water infrastructure – not designed to fight a rapidly expanding wildfire – was unable to keep up with the scale and extreme needs.
“It was designed for more routine structural fires not the sort of unprecedented and coninuous needs that were posed by the fast moving wildfire that we saw”, said Roop Singh, head of urban and attribution at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has said that some fire fighters’ hydrants failed because of a lack of water pressure. WWA said that investments in improved pressure management are needed.
The WWA researchers also emphasised the importance of early warning and evacuation systems as 17 of the 28 deaths occurred in West Altadena, a neighborhood where some residents were only advised to leave after the fire had reached the area.
The family of 73-year-old Priscilla Shurney, who died two days after a rushed evacuation, told the LA Times their relative would still be alive if timely warnings had been given.
Park Williams, a geography professor at the University of California, said that while climate change had made the vegetation that served as fuel drier than it would otherwise have been, “the real reason they become disasters is that homes have been built in areas where fast-moving, high-intensity fires are inevitable”.
“Communities can’t build back the same, because it will only be a matter of years before these burned areas are vegetated again and a high potential for fast-moving fire returns to these landscapes,” he added.
Despite warnings like this, many residents have said they will rebuild their burned-down homes – and Newsom has promised to put public money towards reconstruction efforts.
Singh warned that in Los Angeles and globally, there has been an increase in building in the interface between wildlands and cities. She gave the example of the Greek capital Athens, which has a similar Mediterranean climate to southern California and suffered from climate-driven fires this summer.
Trump vows action on disasters
In his inauguration speech on January 20, Trump – a climate change sceptic – said the LA fires had been burning for weeks “without even a token of defense”.
He noted that the disaster had affected “some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country” who lost their homes to the flames.
“That’s interesting. But we can’t let this happen. Everyone is unable to do anything about it. That’s going to change,” he said, without elaborating on how his government would act.
Later, while visiting storm-hit North Carolina and fire-stricken California, the president said he would sign an executive order to overhaul or get rid of the main federal agency that responds to emergencies, calling it a “disaster” and saying he preferred to give federal money to states to handle catastrophes themselves.
(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)
The post Climate change helped turn LA into dry tinderbox before fires, scientists find appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate change helped turn LA into dry tinderbox before fires, scientists find
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.
In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.
Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump
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A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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