Volume 3 Issue 7, July 2020

Governments are deciding on measures to help economies recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, but, as in previous crises, a narrow focus on fighting the recession could have adverse effects on the environment and health. We suggest that health and sustainability should be at the heart of the economic response.

Various scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions indicate possible futures for climate change. Are they probable?

Environmental policy often delays addressing problems. This Perspective defines such ‘stopgap measures’, considers examples, and applies to solar geoengineering a new framework for assessing stopgaps.

A review of marine spatial planning literature identifies links with climate change and gaps in the practical integration of both concepts.

The effect of education on climate change risks is integral to the relation between climate and development, but difficult to quantify. This article finds potential increases in emissions as well as HDI values due to improved educational attainment in developing countries.

Carbon use often tracks economic development. This study finds the top 5% of Chinese households by income have 17% of the nation’s carbon ‘footprint’ in 2012 but that such inequality declined with China’s economic growth.

Natural disaster risk assessments neglect impacts on households’ well-being. A model to quantify disaster impacts more equitably shows that, in a hypothetical earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, poorer households suffer 19% of the asset losses but 41% of the well-being losses.

Water and wastewater infrastructure worldwide faces unprecedented challenges. A new model can assess the environmental and economic implications of a hybrid water supply system that provides a centralized surface water supply with distributed direct potable reuse of municipal wastewater.

Cleaner hydrogen production can help energy sustainability. The use of yeast biomass-derived materials to develop efficient, eco-friendly and economical catalysts—compared with industrially adopted catalysts—is shown to improve hydrogen production as a strategy towards a sustainable energy system.

The world keeps urbanizing. This study finds that since 1985 global urban lands have expanded four times faster than previously recognized and faster than population is growing.