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Little is known about public understanding of climate justice, despite its increasing prominence in climate change communication. Here a global survey reveals that, although awareness of climate justice is low, beliefs in climate justice are widely supported across countries.

Limited comparative evidence exists on the impacts of climatic factors on internal migration. Here, using a harmonized census-based dataset, the authors find that drought and aridity substantially increase internal migration, with considerable heterogeneity across regions, age groups and education levels.

Climate influences when leaves change colour and fall, but not all trees lose their leaves at the same time. Combining field data, mathematical models and remote sensing, researchers show how local-scale variation in tree canopies and understory temperatures alters the start and duration of autumn leaf colouration and forecast reduced autumn delays under climate change.

The authors demonstrate a significant influence of canopy structure on autumn phenology in temperate forests, mediated by microclimate regulation. Incorporating this relationship into autumn phenology models enhances their prediction accuracy and reduces previously projected delays in autumn phenology.

Relaxing fertility policies and delaying retirement age would increase China’s household carbon footprint mainly by boosting population and labour. Policymakers should synergize policies targeting population ageing and climate change, which are both crucial for sustainable development.

Demographic policies to address population aging could have major climate consequences, and such interaction effect is context dependent. This study shows that relaxing the fertility policy and delaying retirement age in China could lead to an increase in total and per capita household carbon footprint.

By comparing the responses of 323 elite maize lines from different breeding eras, the authors demonstrate that reduced tassel size in newer lines can lead to increased susceptibility to high temperature. This highlights the potential for traits optimized by breeding to lead to climate maladaptation.

A multi-model study demonstrates that well-designed climate policies that mitigate climate impacts and redistribute carbon revenues to households can stabilize the climate while also reducing economic inequality.

The feasibility of certain climate actions needs to be carefully examined to address concerns over their practicality. Researchers across different climate change research fields are increasingly working on this topic.

The authors use long-term satellite tracking to project climate-induced shifts in whale shark distributions and understand their potential future risk of ship-strike. Under high-emission scenarios, the movement of sharks to current range-edge habitat is linked to 15,000-fold increased co-occurrence with ships.

Climate change and economic inequality are critical issues, and we still lack understanding of the interaction between them. Multi-model analysis shows how climate policies compatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement, including revenue-redistribution schemes, can reduce inequality—particularly in the short and medium terms.

The dominant paradigm holding that science is always objective needs to be challenged. When scientists’ opinions about climate change and their own fears are seen as irrelevant, it suggests that science is separate from society; however, this perspective ultimately weakens climate science.

Changes in nutrient availability can alter carbon storage and carbon dioxide emissions from tundra soils. Now, work shows that these responses can shift dramatically over long timescales of nutrient addition, by restructuring the interplay between plants and soil microorganisms.

By expanding on one of the longest-running ecosystem manipulation experiments in the world, we found that the substantial Arctic soil carbon losses observed in the first 20 years of experimentation were temporary. We present evidence suggesting that the Arctic soil carbon balance depends on complex plant–microbial interactions that can take decades to manifest.

Arctic warming is thought to lead to large losses in soil carbon stocks. Here a 35-year-long fertilization experiment in Alaska shows that increased shrub productivity and changes in plant–microbial feedbacks may eventually reverse trends of carbon loss and restore the soil carbon sink.