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.
Initiatives aimed at preserving or enhancing the state of the environment are created in a broad political landscape influenced by, among other things, perceived risks. We take a brief look at this risk landscape in the run up to Paris 2015.
State implementation of new Environmental Protection Agency climate regulation may shift behavioural strategies from sidelines to forefront of US climate policy.
To reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the short term, and catalyse longer-term cuts, countries should reduce the carbon intensity of electricity generation to below a universal target of 600 tCO2e GWh−1 by 2020.
The scarcity of robust scientific evidence supporting the attribution of observed impacts to climate change in some vulnerable regions does not indicate that no such impacts have occurred.
Adaptive development mitigates climate change risks without negatively influencing the well-being of human subjects and ecosystems by using incentives, institutions, and information-based policy interventions to address different components of climate risks.
The characteristics and views of people sceptical about climate change have been analysed extensively. A study now confirms that sceptics in the US have some characteristics of a social movement, but shows that the same group dynamics propel believers.
Modelling of the power system on the west coast of North America shows that including bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration technologies could enable the region to be carbon negative by 2050.
Heavy precipitation has increased worldwide, but the effect of this on flood magnitude has been difficult to pinpoint. An alternative approach to analysing records shows that, in the central United States, floods have become more frequent but not larger.
Solar radiation management – a form of geoengineering – could be used to cool the planet but has potential risks. A scenario for solar radiation management is proposed that is temporary, moderate and can be adjusted in light of new information.
Understanding the vulnerability of different US coastal communities to the likely harmful effects of ocean acidification on shellfisheries should inform the development of effective adaptation measures.
Several approaches are used to assess species’ vulnerability to climate change. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of such methods should help conservationists minimize biodiversity losses.
Consensus about the reality of climate change is growing, but the public is still divided between those who believe in its human causes and those who do not. Now research shows that such division can be explained in terms of a socio-political conflict between these opposing groups. Efforts to build support for mitigation policies should include approaches that transform intergroup relations.
This study investigates the relative contributions to Arctic warming from natural and anthropogenic forcers—greenhouse gases and aerosols. About 60% of greenhouse-gas warming is found to be offset by other anthropogenic forcings, which is greater than observed on a global scale.
Climate models predict an increase in intense rainfall events due to a warmer atmosphere retaining more moisture. This study looks at observations from the central USA and reports that there has been an increase in the frequency of flooding, but little evidence for larger flood peaks.
Policies designed to encourage adaptation to climate change may conflict with regulation aimed at protecting environmental quality. This paper analyses the trade-offs between two fundamental ecosystem services that will be impacted by climate change: provisioning services derived from agriculture and regulating services in the form of freshwater quality.
Over half of the wood harvested globally is used as fuel. Unsustainable harvesting can deplete woody biomass, contributing to forest degradation, deforestation and climate change. A spatially explicit assessment of pan-tropical woodfuel supply and demand is used to estimate where harvest exceeds regrowth and the resultant GHG emissions for 2009.
Saturation state is shown to be the key component of marine carbonate chemistry affecting larval shell development and growth in two commercially important bivalve species.
