When lives or properties are destroyed by floods, storms, or wildfires, can and should anybody be held to account?
DPhil student, Shirin Ermin, looks at how historically, these events have often been considered as ‘acts of God’ - unpredictable, unavoidable and beyond human control. But does this reflect today's world, where anthropogenic climate change is making weather and climate extremes more severe and more frequent?
Shirin is part of the Doctoral Training Partnership in Environmental Research and, in this micro-documentary produced in association with the 2025 Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, she explores what happens when climate science enters the courtroom. Alongside her supervisor, Dr Antje Weisheimer, also from the Department of Physics, Shirin discusses her role as a climate scientist and considers what the future might hold.