Volume 5 Issue 4, April 2022

Contamination of the environment with plastics is one of the most widespread and long-lasting human influences on our planet. There is an urgent need to comprehensively evaluate the environmental plastics cycle and advance understanding of key transport and fate mechanisms to minimize human exposure to plastics pollution.

The transition to a low-carbon energy system requires a huge range of materials for the technologies needed. Now a study highlights how large the demand for aluminium could be with rapid photovoltaic adoption, which could have a massive carbon footprint if action is not taken in the sector.

Well-being and resilience are considered related or even synergistic dimensions of sustainable development. This Perspective highlights how trade-offs emerging from narrow interpretations of resilience and well-being could threaten sustainable development outcomes.

People living in Bangladesh’s coastal zone face multiple water-related risks. This modelling study finds that rising salinity and waterlogging negate the benefits of rehabilitating embankments for reducing crop loss, with impacts being greatest for the poor. Drainage was found to reduce negative impacts.

Land conservation remains one of the biggest tools to try to maintain biodiversity targets. This study examines how strict conservation goals of 30% and 50% of global land area could impact human health and food security.

Carbon inequality mirrors extreme wealth and income inequalities globally, with a high level of consumption-based carbon emissions in rich nations. This study shows that lifting people out of poverty does not impact much emissions globally, though in poorer countries emissions could more than double.

China has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 but policies favouring urbanization could slow down progress. This study tests the hypothesis that urbanization and carbon neutrality are not mutually exclusive and that sustainably managed urbanization could increase carbon sequestration, especially in rural areas.

Although the clean residential heating transition has been proceeding rapidly in China, the climate, air-quality and health impacts as well as the household costs of various heaters are not well known. This study analyses air-quality–health–carbon interdependencies and costs of alternative heating options at the provincial level across northern China.

The building envelope is the interface between a building and its surrounding environment, and has a substantial impact on energy efficiency and aesthetic appeal. Here the authors present a coloured low-emissivity film design that could work year-round to save energy.

The production of organic esters forms a basis for relevant chemical and pharmaceutical industries, but its yield rate cannot exceed the equilibrium limit. Here the authors apply photothermal energy to catalyse an esterification reaction, achieving higher conversion efficiency.

Greater photovoltaic deployment is critical to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, but the associated aluminium (Al) demand could pose a substantial global warming threat. Decarbonizing the electricity used for Al production and using less primary Al are the best ways to mitigate emissions.