Articles in 2023

The triple climate inequality crisis, or disparities in contributions, impacts and capacity to act within and between countries, is a central issue in addressing climate change. This Comment advocates for progressive wealth taxation as a viable solution to the finance gap.

Policies and psychological approaches often overemphasize individual agency, overlooking how socioeconomic inequality can constrain access to low-carbon alternatives. We argue that tackling these inequalities is urgent for impactful, equitable behaviour change.

Communal life is characterized by the shared timing of human and environmental events. Climate change is disrupting these timings, creating mismatches in these coordinated temporal patterns and requiring adaptive governance.

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.

Both warming and precipitation changes are affecting the global carbon cycle, although the impact of the frequency and intensity of climate extremes on carbon cycling is unclear. Now, research suggests that most extreme events enhance soil organic carbon losses under warming globally.

Warming temperatures associated with climate change are expected to impact soil carbon stocks, yet the effect of more frequent and intense extreme climate events on soil carbon is yet unclear. This study shows that most extremes enhance soil carbon loss globally, with variation across ecosystems.

The shale gas revolution has provided a cheap and relatively clean alternative for coal, but it also threatens the future market for renewables. Recent projections indicate that without tightening climate policy, shale gas will indefinitely delay the transition to net zero.

The Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO), a large storm system over the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, plays a crucial role in our ability to forecast Earth’s weather 2–4 weeks in advance. Now, research suggests that the predictability of the MJO itself is increasing and will continue to increase with global warming.

The Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) is a key feature of tropical weather on a multi-weekly timescale. Here, the authors show that the MJO becomes more predictable with climate change, potentially allowing better subseasonal-to-seasonal forecasting.

Recent criticisms have suggested that future emissions are unlikely to lead to the warmest climate scenario available (SSP5–8.5), which has resulted in the second highest scenario (SSP3–7.0) receiving increased attention. The distinctiveness of SSP3–7.0 has not been well recognized, but it is relevant for the proper interpretation of studies that use this scenario.

Microorganisms and their activities are as integrated in climate change science as they are in the world around us, playing key roles related to the causes, impacts and perhaps even some solutions of climate change.

If rapid and just transformations to low-carbon societies are to take place, citizens need to obtain the necessary knowledge and skills to critically examine and choose adequate climate policy options. An emphasis on critical climate education research and implementation is therefore required.

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.

Fire severity is expected to increase as a result of warming. This will potentially amplify climate change due to its impact on the carbon cycle. This Review discusses ecosystem carbon loss and recovery following wildfire, and highlights where further work is needed to inform model predictions.

The authors use experimental data from 332 sites across all major global biomes to evaluate the drivers of soil microbial respiration response to warming. They demonstrate a key role of the soil microbiome, highlighting the need to account for this in assessments of soil respiration under change.

It has been suggested that Antarctic ice sheets can become unstable and undergo irreversible retreat, but so far observational evidence for this mechanism is missing. Here, the authors show evidence that such an irreversible retreat occurred at Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica in the 1970s.

Funding large-scale negative emissions through a carbon market designed for traditional emission reduction strategies risks exacerbating long-term economic inequality. We suggest exploring alternative financing mechanisms that address this concern and that still ensure decarbonization at reasonable costs.