In this issue of Nature Climate Change, we publish our first Registered Report. We encourage scientists from all climate research communities to consider this format in the future.

The desire to justify carbon-emitting behaviours could influence people’s climate change beliefs due to motivated cognition. Based on a pre-registered survey experiment in the United States, the study, however, finds no evidence supporting the claim in explaining climate denial and environmentally harmful behaviour.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review on renewable energy expansion and biodiversity. Comparing renewable energy siting maps with the ranges of two threatened species under future climates, they highlight the potential conflict and need for consideration of climate-change-driven range shifts.

The authors develop a biophysical model to understand the impacts of tree loss and climate change on the activity patterns and population trends of a diurnal ectotherm (lizard). They show that deforestation can reverse the positive effects of climate change and even accelerate population declines.

Increasing exposure to climate hazards under climate change will disproportionately impact poor communities. This study shows that disruptions to infrastructure service threaten progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals in coastal Bangladesh, but impacts can be mediated through adaptation.

The authors use stomach contents from six fish species sampled for 12 years to show that warming shifts foraging behaviour to favour consumption of less energetically rewarding prey. Using food web models, they show that this flexible foraging could lead to reduced community biodiversity.

International trade of used vehicles lacks regulation on emissions standards. This study shows that vehicles exported from Great Britain generate substantially higher carbon and pollution emissions than scrapped or on-road vehicles.

City fiscal and budgetary decisions play an essential role in the success of urban climate action. Using US cities as a case study, this Article reveals the interrelationship between urban climate finance, action and justice, as well as promising pathways to transform municipal finance practices.

The impacts of climate change on food production will affect us all. It is important that research and funding are available to minimize these effects and support the most vulnerable.

In this issue of Nature Climate Change, we publish our first Registered Report. We encourage scientists from all climate research communities to consider this format in the future.