Ecosystems, and the services they provide, can support climate mitigation and adaptation, yet also suffer from climate change impacts. Now, discussions surround how to best support the eco–climate nexus, overcoming the challenges ahead and creating multiple benefits.

The expansion of urban environments contributes to climate change and biodiversity loss. Implementing nature-based strategies to create ‘regenerative living cities’ will be critical for climate change mitigation and adaptation and will produce measurable biodiversity and wellbeing co-benefits.

Ecosystem services are often omitted from climate policy owing to difficulties in estimating the economic value of climate-driven ecosystem changes. However, recent advances in data and methods can help us overcome these challenges and move towards a more comprehensive accounting of climate impacts.

Incorporating the carbon services of wild animals into financial markets has the potential to benefit both climate and conservation through the development of carbon offsets that are equitable and nature positive. However, for this paradigm to be successful, many challenges regarding science, finance and law still need to be overcome.

Peatlands have historically acted as a carbon sink, but it is unclear how climate warming will affect this. The response of peatland carbon uptake to warming depends on the timing of summer warming; early warming leads to increased CO₂ uptake and later warming to decreased uptake.

Non-CO₂ effects must be addressed for climate-neutral aviation but are currently ignored in international climate policies. The authors provide a framework with different definitions of climate neutrality, then show how technological and demand-side mitigation efforts can help to achieve these targets.

Changes in the spatial pattern of aerosol could influence climate through effects on radiative forcing. Model experiments show that while aerosol absorption in the midlatitudes and regions of tropical descent can warm the planet, aerosol absorption in regions of tropical ascent can cool the planet.

Hydropower will be an important source to meet the increasing energy needs in Africa, yet it is also faced with growing climate-induced risks. Regional interconnections among power pools and variable renewable energy could both help to reduce capacity loss and variability.

Joint initiatives by state and non-state actors launched at climate summits are expected to enhance climate governance. However, those launched at earlier summits often perform better, as do initiatives in areas such as transport, energy and industry and ones with robust institutional arrangements.

Climate change may increase or decrease human migration. Applying an integrated assessment model with migration dynamics to income data, the authors show that the lowest-income groups have mobility reduced by 10–35%.

Northern expansion is often seen as a solution to climate-driven agricultural challenges in lower latitudes, yet little is known about cultivation–permafrost interactions. We outline four science-based adaptations, informed by farmer knowledge, that reduce risk and inform decisions to sustainably manage and develop permafrost-agroecosystems.

Climate and freedom are interconnected in various ways. The recent German verdict on climate protection realigned the fundamental rights in liberal democratic societies and marks an important step in climate litigation around the world.