Articles in 2024

Many cities are developing plans and strategies to achieve net-zero emissions and combat climate change. However, the operational value of residual emissions remains unknown, thus challenging the integrity, transparency and impact of such pledges.

Current model-based financial regulations favour carbon-intensive investments. This is likely to disincentivize banks from investing in new low-carbon assets, impairing the transition to net zero. Financial regulators and policymakers should consider how this bias may impact financial system stability and broader societal objectives.

Using a global meta-analysis approach, the authors show that elevated CO₂ alone can increase primary productivity and leaf C/N ratio and stimulate nitrogen fixation and nitrogen use efficiency. They project increasing carbon sink and decreasing reactive nitrogen loss under climate change.

As the financial system is increasingly important in catalysing the green transition, it is critical to assess the impediments it may face. This study shows that existing financial regulations may impair the shift of financial resources from high-carbon to low-carbon assets.

Rapid population ageing is challenging for climate adaptation. Considering ageing demographics and green infrastructure development in 26,885 Southeast Asian communities, the authors find a reduction in green space in ageing communities, especially in socio-economically disadvantaged areas, with implications for vulnerability.

The worldwide trend of decreasing corporate tax in recent years has contributed to an increase in global carbon emissions, but implementing a global minimum tax rate of 15% could partially mitigate this impact. Policymakers should coordinate corporate tax policies with climate regulations.

Countries use corporate tax cuts to attract foreign investment, which reshapes patterns of global production. This research shows that such competition will lead to higher carbon emissions and shift them to developing countries, while a global minimum tax could help alleviate these problems.

Global climate change will continue to reconfigure water resources and lead to more extreme events. Water markets may provide a low-cost adaptation tool. This Perspective discusses the opportunities and challenges for surface and groundwater markets to manage water resources.

The ocean stores about 30% of the carbon emitted by human activities, regulating atmospheric CO₂ levels and the Earth’s climate. Research suggests that this uptake of CO₂ has strengthened much faster in coastal ocean waters than in the open ocean due to enhanced biological activity.

When the temperature increases, so do the energetic requirements of species. We find that the energetic stress caused by increases in temperature pushes fish species to consume the first prey they encounter to fulfil their immediate needs, rather than focusing on more energetically rewarding prey. This behaviour increases the vulnerability of communities to climate change.

The coastal ocean is a dynamic environment, and CO₂ uptake is increasing faster than in the open ocean. Incorporating coastal processes into a global model shows that biological responses to climate-induced circulation changes and riverine nutrient inputs are key to the enhanced uptake.

How the climate system changes under negative emissions is not well known. Here the authors show that the mid-latitude storm tracks change in an asymmetric way, leading to stronger Northern Hemisphere and weaker Southern Hemisphere storm tracks after recovery to present-day CO₂ concentrations.

Nature-based climate solutions are widely incorporated into climate change mitigation plans and need firm scientific foundations. Through literature review and expert elicitation, this analysis shows that for some major pathways there is strong support, while for others their efficacy remains uncertain.

Mitigation and adaptation strategies have historically been, and continue to be, developed separately. The climate is already changing and integration of adaptation and mitigation in policy and practice is now urgently needed.

Analysis of patent data from 1990 to 2019 reveals a global decline in the invention and international diffusion of high-quality methane-targeted abatement technologies (MTATs) from 2010 to 2019. Moreover, there is a mismatch between where MTAT inventions are concentrated and the countries or regions expected to have most growth in future methane emissions.

Innovations in methane-targeted abatement technologies (MTAT) are needed to curb climate change in the short term. This Analysis reveals the trend, distributions and diffusion of MTAT-related patents for the past few decades, highlighting the mismatch between emissions sources and technical capacity.

Grazing has been shown to have diverse effects on soil carbon, with local variation. This study assesses carbon changes related to grazing globally and finds that, although grazing has reduced soil carbon stocks, managing intensity could increase carbon uptake in both soils and vegetation.

It is important to detect human influence on the climate, but natural variability can hide signals of change. Here the authors show the anthropogenic signal has emerged for sea surface temperature seasonality, primarily driven by greenhouse gas increases, and with geographical differences in change.

Behavioural science offers valuable insights for mitigating climate change, but existing work focuses mostly on consumption and lacks coordination across disciplines. In this Perspective, the authors make six recommendations for improving the quality and impact of behavioural research on mitigation.

Groundwater recharge replenishes aquifers and enables them to sustain irrigated agriculture and household water access, but the sensitivity of recharge to climate change remains unclear. Our analysis of global recharge rates demonstrates their sensitivity to climatic conditions, implying that amplified and nonlinear impacts of climate change on recharge rates are likely.