Reviews & Analysis

The Rotterdam Convention helps ensure that international trade of harmful chemicals is transparent, and it gives parties the right to refuse imports of specific substances. Now a study shows that illegal trade of chemicals listed under the Rotterdam Convention is ongoing alongside legal trade.

Changes in driving behaviour could offer solutions to reducing transport emissions. Classification of driver aggressiveness based on vehicle trajectory data is used to estimate transport emissions associated with differences in car-following behaviour in China from 2013 to 2050. This analysis reveals that a trend towards more aggressive driving could increase transport emissions.

Primary human exposure to large wildfires more than doubled in the contiguous United States from 2000 to 2019, largely occurring in the western United States. This increase is attributable to an increase in the burned area, as well as to wildfires impacting more people and infrastructure per unit burned area, particularly in California.

Nitrogen requirements and usage vary across maize, wheat and rice systems in Ethiopia, Malawi and India. Analysis of these systems indicates that targeted nutrient management strategies could increase the efficiency of nitrogen usage, helping to address fertilizer shortages and reduce the negative environmental impacts of excess nitrogen.

The upcycling of plastic wastes to realize plastics circularity is obstructed by the presence of chlorine impurities. Now a conversion strategy addresses this problem and paves the way to upcycle chlorine-contaminated plastic wastes.

Adopting ‘climate-smart’ agricultural practices that increase the amount of carbon stored in soils can make an important contribution to climate change mitigation. But if crop productivity suffers as a result, other farmers may compensate by expanding cropland elsewhere, which could offset some carbon savings.

Many coral reefs suffer from the effects of overfishing, which threatens biodiversity and erodes human livelihoods. A study now reveals where fished reefs boost their total productivity, providing a means of resilience.

Pb leakage from damaged perovskite solar cells exposed to water is minimized by applying a TiO₂ sponge to sequester Pb ions. The sponge can be deposited on ready-to-use devices using a scalable and solvent-free process. As TiO₂ is already used in perovskite solar cells, this approach promises environmental benefits without substantial investment costs.

A bold study now combines rigorous ethical criteria to calculate national obligations based on each country’s level of ‘overshoot’ in appropriation of the atmosphere’s capacity to absorb carbon emissions. The findings suggest that a massive debt is owed.

Restoring coastal vegetated habitats can remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it as organic matter in sediments. A study now shows that these habitats also support seawater to store more carbon, and for longer, in its dissolved inorganic form.

Curbside recycling is costly and performs poorly on expected environmental and economic outcomes. This raises the question of whether curbside recycling should endure or be eliminated to allow alternative services to flourish.

Conservation basic income provides a model that could improve the well-being of people and nature, but more research is needed on the environmental efficacy and social equitability.

Reducing greenhouse gases can benefit air quality and health overall, but the magnitude and distribution of these benefits remain uncertain. Now a study shows that while air quality gains from carbon policies are widespread, some regions could see pollution increases.

Providing a basic income to individuals living in areas important for global biodiversity is one way to support conservation. Our calculation shows how the gross cost can vary, depending on prioritization, eligibility and payment scenarios, and will support discussions about the implementation of basic income as a global conservation policy.

Understanding how community-based initiatives work is crucial for effective environmental management, but robust evaluations of these efforts are rare. A study of a national network of locally managed marine areas in Fiji shows that, aside from an improvement in marine governance, there have been few tangible conservation outcomes.

Involving locals in marine conservation and management has been promoted to improve livelihoods and marine life. A study shows how community-based initiatives can be designed appropriately to generate desired social, economic and ecological outcomes.

The concept of resilience, once meaning the ability to ‘bounce back’ to the status quo, now refers to the capacity to live and develop with change. A mismatch between the latest science of resilience and the talk of resilience recovery after COVID-19 requires resilience thinking to be aligned with sustainable development.

Many of the barriers to progress in addressing environmental problems, such as climate change, are political. This Review illustrates how insight into politics can help policymakers craft strategies to address the ambition gap, the implementation gap and the international action gap.

Biocrusts are crucial for soil health and sustainability in arid lands; however, human activities are degrading these biocrusts. This study explores the use of solar farms for a low-cost, low-impact and high-capacity approach to regenerate biocrusts. This technique could be used to expand current soil restoration approaches to regional scales.

Urban water crises are an increasingly pressing challenge. A study now shows how unsustainable behaviour fostered by social inequalities undermines water access and, if unaddressed, may lead to increased vulnerability in the long term.