Perspectives

In this Perspective, the authors develop an integrated framework to understand and predict the joint impacts of climate change and urbanization on biodiversity and ecosystems. They review examples of interacting impacts and present opportunities for future research.

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.

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.

Recent US climate bills mark a major step in domestic climate actions, while their successful implementation relies on strong assumptions. This Perspective discusses potential challenges regarding supply, consumer demand and political polarization and how insights of social science could help to overcome these challenges.

Justice issues are integral to a variety of climate science and policy processes. This Perspective provides a framework, based on philosophical theory, to explain key justice concepts and how they can be applied in climate discussions.

Public engagement is necessary for climate action, yet it is difficult to achieve. This Perspective explores three assumptions about public engagement and provides suggestions for overcoming these to facilitate better engagement.

This Perspective evaluates efforts using machine learning to track global progress on adaptation, focusing on recent efforts in text analysis. It discusses practical and theoretical challenges, lessons learned and ways forward. It urges the adaptation community to prepare for a paradigm shift.

Underlying net-zero GHG accounting approaches is the assumption that emissions can be balanced by removals such that their net climate effect is zero. However, CO₂ removals may not be equal and opposite to CO₂ emissions in their climate impact, indicating the need to consider non-CO₂ effects.

Neuroscience can help combat climate change by studying its impact on the human brain, adaptation strategies, decision-making processes and communication strategies. This Perspective outlines a roadmap towards these targets and calls on neuroscientists to join the fight against this global threat.

Nature-based solutions are essential to avoid climate crisis, yet how best to estimate their long-run effects is unclear. Here the authors propose a new dynamic accounting method that captures the impermanence of these carbon impacts, allowing investors to make robust comparisons across projects.

In this Perspective, the authors highlight agroforestry as a natural climate solution, discussing definitional refinements, controls on mitigation potential and remote sensing innovations. They assess the status of agroforestry in the context of climate ambitions, identifying key areas and opportunities.

Net-zero pledges are emerging around the world, but to be consequential they must compel credibility as a core objective of climate policy design. This paper proposes an approach, named backward induction, that aims to maximize policy credibility by balancing building commitment and cost efficiency.

In this Perspective, the authors highlight the potential of animal-borne sensors to overcome common limitations of traditional climate measurements. Animal-borne sensors can provide fine-grained and ecologically relevant sampling, and tagged animals could function as environmental sentinels worldwide.

Satellite radar altimetry enables the detection of sea-level changes by collecting data that have exceeded early expectations. This Perspective discusses potential advances that would enhance the data, allowing regional detection and attribution of sea-level change and improving ocean heat uptake estimates.

Most models of global climate change impacts and policy do not consider adaptation or societies’ ability to adapt. Here the authors propose a way to better integrate adaptation in such models using the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenario framework to quantify adaptive capacity via a suite of socioeconomic indicators.

Climate and socioeconomic change are reshaping wildfire patterns and increasing risks globally, leading to potential new conflicts and equity issues. Incorporating justice considerations from different perspectives into integrated wildfire risk management is essential to address these new challenges.

In this Perspective, the authors discuss the importance of considering phenotypic plasticity in conservation actions. They propose a framework to directly connect plasticity to management and a road map for developing tools to highlight where considering plasticity could be beneficial or required.

Environmental justice should be a central concern in adaptation action to avoid reproducing marginalizing power structures. Critical race theory can provide novel and valuable perspectives that contribute to promoting equity in climate change adaptation research and practices.

In this Perspective, the authors argue that the restoration of wild animals and their functional roles can enhance natural carbon capture and storage. They call for the scope of natural climate solutions to be broadened to include animals.

With the development of carbon emission allowance markets worldwide, concerns that they could attract excessive speculation have also grown. This Perspective discusses the potential scale and impacts of financial trading, as well as approaches to improve carbon market monitoring and oversight.