Volume 12 Issue 6, June 2022

Decarbonizing global steel production requires a fundamental transformation. A sectoral climate club, which goes beyond tariffs and involves deep transnational cooperation, can facilitate this transformation by addressing technical, economic and political uncertainties.

Sharp fronts and eddies that are ubiquitous in the world ocean, as well as features such as shelf seas and under-ice-shelf cavities, are not captured in climate projections. Such small-scale processes can play a key role in how the large-scale ocean and cryosphere evolve under climate change, posing a challenge to climate models.

Current global climate models struggle to represent precipitation and related extreme events, with serious implications for the physical evidence base to support climate actions. A leap to kilometre-scale models could overcome this shortcoming but requires collaboration on an unprecedented scale.

Climate change and rising CO₂ concentrations have been increasing plant productivity over the past two decades. Now, research projects that this increase will cease over most of the Northern Hemisphere, except the Arctic, by 2060.

How the species that form ecological communities respond to climate change will affect the future resilience of ecosystems, and their capacity to support humankind. The responses of animals and plants to four decades of warming demonstrate the sensitivity of high-latitude ecosystems to increasing temperatures.

Many companies purchase renewable energy certificates to report reduced emissions, but this may not lead to actual emission reductions. We need emission accounting that is both accurate and that incentivizes companies to make impactful contributions to decarbonizing electricity grids.

A model based on plausible changes in expectations of future oil and gas demand identifies the ultimate financial owners of potential stranded assets to be predominantly OECD-based individual investors (through pension funds and shareholdings) and governments of non-OECD countries.

Following a complete cessation of anthropogenic emissions, global warming will continue before cooling. We modelled this zero-emissions scenario in the context of realistic emissions pathways and revealed an existing commitment to temporarily exceeding 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C global warming thresholds half a decade before these targets would have otherwise been reached.

Using a cryosphere–hydrology–crop model, future changes in the amount and sources of water withdrawals for irrigation are investigated for South Asia under different climate change and socioeconomic scenarios. The model reveals that meltwater and groundwater will become increasingly important to complement rainfall runoff to provide food for millions.

A study involving over 12,000 observations shows that high-quality cropland soils not only lead to a higher yield, but also to a smaller yield reduction and variability in response to warmer climates. Appropriate efforts to improve soil quality may reduce the decline in crop production induced by climate change in China by 20%.

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping our society in many ways, and climate change is no exception. This Perspective presents a framework to assess how AI affects GHG emissions and proposes approaches to align the technology with climate change mitigation.

Young people around the world have joined the school climate strikes and shared belief of the unfair climate threat or proper future actions. However, different adolescents still have divergent opinions on the image, effectiveness or motivation of the protest activities.

The necessary and rapid transition to a low-carbon economy will lead to massive stranded assets, which could risk the stability of financial markets and the economy. Through a global equity network, most risk and responsibility is owned by investors, such as pension funds, in developed countries.

Companies commonly use renewable energy certificates to report progress towards emission reduction targets. However, this use of certificates is unlikely to result in actual emission reductions, which undermines the credibility of corporate emission reduction claims and their alignment with the Paris Agreement goal.

Halting emissions does not immediately stop warming as atmospheric concentrations continue to warm the planet. This study shows society may already be committed to exceeding 1.5 °C peak warming with 42% probability; delaying cuts increases this to 66% in 2029 for all scenarios.

Southern mid-latitude winter storms are expected to intensify with emission increases, but it is unknown if such intensification has already emerged. Here, storms are shown to have intensified in recent decades, and current models considerably underestimate this, indicating more risk than projected.

Changes to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) will have substantial regional impacts but more remote effects are unclear. Here, model analysis shows that AMOC collapse causes excess heat to accumulate in the tropical south Atlantic Ocean, resulting in atmospheric changes globally.

South Asian agriculture depends on water from rains, meltwater and groundwater, but climate change impacts the timing of these water sources’ availability. Projections indicate that meltwater and groundwater will become more important and will need to offset reduced rainfall during drier years.

Food demand is increasing, while climate change is impacting the magnitude and stability of crop yields. High-quality soils are able to buffer the negative impacts of climate change and lead to smaller yield reduction and higher yield stability, indicating a potential adaptation strategy.

Vegetation productivity in the Northern Hemisphere has increased under climate change since the 1980s. However, the correlations between productivity and summer temperature are projected to decrease by the end of the century, with implications for the magnitude of the terrestrial carbon sink.

The authors analyse four decades of distribution data for various taxonomic groups to understand the shift of species within their climatic niches and the changing influences of different climate factors. The diverse and diverging climate imprints raise concerns about future ecosystem integrity.