Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
A new climate agreement won't solve climate change, but it should nudge the world onto a lower-emissions path. Research must drive deeper transformations by translating proposed solutions into workable action.
Tropical forests could offset much of the carbon released from the declining use of fossil fuels, helping to stabilize and then reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations, thereby providing a bridge to a low-fossil-fuel future.
Policymakers have committed to tackling loss and damage as a result of climate change across three high-profile international processes. Framing post-2015 development as a means to address loss and damage can synergize these agendas.
More effort should be put into standardization as a route to achieving international consensus and action on climate change. Cities are a good example of what is being achieved through this arguably unfashionable mechanism.
The temperature in many office buildings is set according to a method from the 1960s. Consideration of the different metabolic rates of male and females is necessary to increase comfort and reduce energy consumption.
It is sometimes assumed that making climate change seem 'closer to home' is a good way to catalyse action. But insights from psychology suggest that people's reaction to the proximity of climate change is complex.
This Perspective considers the influence of marine predators on carbon cycling in salt marshes, seagrass meadows, and mangroves, and the potential role that these carbon-rich vegetated coastal ecosystems could play in climate change mitigation.
Two competing theories suggest that Arctic communities are either highly vulnerable to climate change, or demonstrate significant adaptive capacity. A review of the research shows that the challenge of Arctic adaptation is formidable, but can be overcome.
The thermal comfort standards developed in the 1960s were based on the average male. Altering these standards to account for female metabolic rates could save energy and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from buildings.
Corporations need to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions to help avoid dangerous climate change. A new method for setting emissions targets, which can also be used to assess corporate climate performance and increase accountability, is proposed.
Emissions analysis shows that projects abating two greenhouse gases in Russia under the Joint Implementation mechanism increased waste gas generation, suggesting that plant operators may have generated more waste gas while increasing credit revenues.
Public perceptions of climate change policies change over time. A national survey shows that although acceptance of the carbon pricing policy stayed stable throughout the election campaign, this did not indicate support for the policy.
An analysis of US domestic flight data for the past two decades reveals the overwhelmingly tight control of climate variability on air travel. Potential feedbacks between aviation and climate change are quantified using CMIP5 model projections.
The mechanisms that allow some species to adjust to changing environmental conditions across generations are poorly understood. This study reveals the molecular processes underlying transgenerational acclimation in a common reef fish.
The combination of rising CO2 and temperature is expected to increase primary production in the Arctic Ocean. This study uses observations and experimental data from the European sector to show that primary productivity may double in the spring.
A shift from coral to macroalgae dominance of reef systems affected by volcanically acidified waters around Maug (Mariana Islands, North Pacific Ocean) increases fears that reef corals will be displaced by algae as a result of ocean acidification.
Indonesian mangrove carbon stocks are estimated to be 1,083 ± 378 MgC ha−1. In the past three decades Indonesia has lost 40% of its 2.9 Mha of mangroves; this is estimated to have resulted in annual CO2-equivalent emissions of 0.07–0.21 Pg.
The co-occurrence of storm surge and heavy precipitation can compound coastal flooding. Research now estimates the probability of such co-occurrences for the US and shows that the number of events has increased significantly over the past century.
Breaking away from the utopian assumption that the international community will agree on a single emissions allocation scheme, this study assesses approaches to setting country-level mitigation targets in line with the 2 °C goal.
Simulations show that massive removal of CO2 from the atmosphere through geoengineering will not eliminate the long-term consequences of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the marine environment.
Coastal flood risk is strongly influenced by sea-level rise and changes in tropical cyclone activity, but these factors are usually considered independently. Research now accounts for their joint contribution to coastal flood hazard for the US East Coast over the 21st century.