Energy and society articles within Nature Geoscience

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• Comment | 26 January 2024

  Prioritize environmental sustainability in use of AI and data science methods

  Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data science will play a crucial role in improving environmental sustainability, but the energy requirements of these methods will have an increasingly negative effect on the environment without sustainable design and use.

  • Caroline Jay
  • , Yurong Yu
  •  & David Topping

• Comment | 06 November 2023

  Booming solar energy is encroaching on cropland

  The rapid spread of solar power plants onto cropland is having increasingly detrimental impacts. Targeted policy and technological solutions are urgently needed to resolve the tension between renewable energy and food production.

  • Ning Zhang
  • , Huabo Duan
  •  & Xuemei Bai

• World View | 09 June 2023

  My journey out of fossil fuel-funded research

  Research on the energy transition needs to involve all communities and requires breaking the paradigm of traditional industry-funded research, argues Jef Caers from his personal story.

  • Jef Caers

• Article
  30 June 2022 | Open Access

  Global patterns of daily CO₂ emissions reductions in the first year of COVID-19

  Observed daily changes in CO₂ emissions from across the globe reveal the sectors and countries where pandemic-related emissions declines were most pronounced in 2020.

  • Zhu Liu
  • , Zhu Deng
  •  & Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

• Editorial | 31 July 2018

  Waste not, want not

  Earth’s resources may not be running out, but the planet’s capacity to cope with the resulting waste products is limited. Resource geology can no longer be the preserve of the economic, mining or petroleum geologist; sustainably providing for the world’s population requires a broader skillset.

• Article | 02 July 2018

  Structural decline in China’s CO₂ emissions through transitions in industry and energy systems

  The decline in China’s CO₂ emissions in the past few years is largely due to changes in industrial structure and a decline in the share of coal for energy production, according to a quantitative analysis of the drivers of CO₂ emissions.

  • Dabo Guan
  • , Jing Meng
  •  & Steven J. Davis

• Commentary | 17 October 2016

  Pathways to zero emissions

  To keep global warming below 2 °C, countries need long-term strategies for low-emission development. Without these, immediate emissions reductions may lock-in high-emitting infrastructure, hamper collaboration and make climate goals unachievable.

  • Jeffrey D. Sachs
  • , Guido Schmidt-Traub
  •  & Jim Williams

• Commentary | 25 July 2016

  China's post-coal growth

  Slowing GDP growth, a structural shift away from heavy industry, and more proactive policies on air pollution and clean energy have caused China's coal use to peak. It seems that economic growth has decoupled from growth in coal consumption.

  • Ye Qi
  • , Nicholas Stern
  •  & Fergus Green

• Commentary | 31 March 2016

  Cities lead on climate change

  The need to mitigate climate change opens up a key role for cities. Bristol's year as a Green Capital led to great strides forward, but it also revealed that a creative and determined partnership across cultural divides will be necessary.

  • Richard D. Pancost