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  • WORLD VIEW

To adapt to climate impacts, come to grips with politics

Good weather held back US climate action for decades. Responding to extreme events now requires a grasp of what’s politically possible.
  1. Megan Mullin

    1. Megan Mullin is professor of environmental politics at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and an Andrew Carnegie Fellow.

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Nearly 25,000 square kilometres of the United States have burnt so far in 2022. Much of the west of the country is in extreme drought, wiping out crops and drying up drinking-water supplies. In Kentucky, rain-driven flooding has caused at least 39 deaths this summer, and US coastal communities have grappled with record-breaking high-tide flooding brought on by sea-level rise. Devastating heat has besieged much of the Northern Hemisphere, taking lives and damaging roads, railways, power grids and other infrastructure.

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Nature 609, 9 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02762-0

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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