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When considering how ecosystems will react to climate change the importance of dead matter has been largely overlooked. Here we discuss why dead material is integral to ecosystem form and function, and why its persistence or degradation must be explicitly included in models considering ecosystem futures in a rapidly changing world.
Global lessons are emerging on the enablers of effective knowledge co-production. An inclusion of greater reflexivity, which incorporates broad socio-political perspectives and feedbacks, could be the next frontier for the integrated assessment communities.
A better understanding of the role of language in societies is required — for example, whether adoption of emergency terminology could impact views and practices. For both researchers and communication strategists, a thorough consideration of the interconnections between language and social contexts is crucial.
Efforts to achieve emissions targets often fall short. Science can help meet the targets by assessing the feasibility of initiatives proposed to reach them, focusing on issues of adoption and implementation and the behavioural plasticity of intended responders.
Considering cryosphere and warming uncertainties together implies drastically increased risk of threshold crossing in the cryosphere, even under lower-emission pathways, and underscores the need to halve emissions by 2030 in line with the 1.5 °C limit of the Paris Agreement.
Behaviour change is essential for effective solutions to climate threats. Thus, policy-relevant behavioural science studies are needed for a shift towards human-centred climate actions.
For effective climate policy, we need both classic and behavioural policies. Green nudges facilitate the effectiveness of a carbon tax by increasing the salience of the tax, harnessing pro-climate concerns, extending the reach of a tax by targeting behaviours directly and, importantly, increasing public acceptance of carbon taxes.
As regulatory attention on scope 3 emissions mounts, the ‘double-counting’ concern cited by companies can be addressed by allocating shared responsibility across the supply chain. Measurement and data collection present more substantial challenges in reaching an effective allocation.
Many natural disaster insurance markets were designed under historical distributions of climate risk that differ from those prevailing today. These differences create challenges for natural disaster insurance markets to mitigate the effects of climate change and also increase demand for innovative policy solutions.
Climate change is a confounding factor that can affect agriculture and food security in many different ways. Climate-resilient food systems are needed to ensure food security and to support mitigation efforts.
