Climate-change mitigation articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Terms such as ‘climate change’ and ‘climate crisis’ need to be evaluated for their effectiveness for public perception. In this study of a sample of the Taiwanese public reactions to the terms were largely the same, however, in specific subgroups the term ‘climate crisis’ faced some backlash.

    • Li-San Hung
    •  & Mucahid Mustafa Bayrak

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate action from local actors is vital in achieving nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement. Here the authors show that existing commitments from U.S. states, cities and business could reduce emissions 25% below 2005 levels by 2030, with expanded subnational action reducing emissions by 37% and federal action by up to 49%.

    • Nathan E. Hultman
    • , Leon Clarke
    •  & John O’Neill

  • Article
    | Open Access

    China issued the Dual Credit policy to improve vehicle efficiency and accelerate new energy vehicle adoption. Here the authors show that the total Greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) of the Chinese passenger vehicle fleet are expected to peak in 2032 and a significant reduction in GHG emissions is possible by optimizing the Dual Credit policy.

    • Xin He
    • , Shiqi Ou
    •  & Michael Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    As low-carbon energy technologies advance, markets are driving demand for energy transition metals, increasing the stress placed on people and the environment in extractive locations. Here, the authors quantify this stress by developing a set of global composite environmental, social and governance risk indicators, and find that 84% of platinum resources and 70% of cobalt resources are located in high-risk contexts.

    • Éléonore Lèbre
    • , Martin Stringer
    •  & Rick K. Valenta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In the light of nine Earth System Processes (ESPs) and the corresponding planetary boundaries, here the authors assessed the global environmental impact of a global carbon pricing in a multi-boundary world. They show that a global carbon tax would relieve pressure on most ESPs and it is therefore stronger in a multi-boundary world than when considering climate change in isolation.

    • Gustav Engström
    • , Johan Gars
    •  & Badri Narayanan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cement plays a dual role in the carbon cycle like a sponge. Here, the authors employ a dynamic model to quantify such sponge effect and concluded that deep decarbonization of the global cement cycle will require radical technology advancements and widespread deployment of material efficiency measures.

    • Zhi Cao
    • , Rupert J. Myers
    •  & Gang Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Strong mitigation of anthropogenic emissions is necessary, but it is not clear how fast these efforts would lead to temperature changes. Here, the authors find that there is a substantial delay between reductions of emissions and a detectable change in surface temperature for a number of climate forcers.

    • B. H. Samset
    • , J. S. Fuglestvedt
    •  & M. T. Lund

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To remove CO2 from the atmosphere every year by mid-century will need new technologies. Here the authors proposed the use of magnesia (MgO) in ambient looping processes to remove CO2 from the air and they found that the proposed approach will cost $46–195 tCO2−1 net removed from the atmosphere considering both grid and solar electricity resources without including post-processing costs.

    • Noah McQueen
    • , Peter Kelemen
    •  & Jennifer Wilcox

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    Current environmental impact mitigation neglects over-consumption from affluent citizens as a primary driver. The authors highlight the role of bottom-up movements to overcome structural economic growth imperatives spurring consumption by changing structures and culture towards safe and just systems.

    • Thomas Wiedmann
    • , Manfred Lenzen
    •  & Julia K. Steinberger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The decrease in costs of renewable energy and storage has not been well accounted for in energy modelling, which however will have a large effect on energy system investment and policies. Here the authors incorporated recent decrease in costs of renewable energy and storages to refine the pathways to decarbonize China’s power system by 2030 and show that if such cost trends for renewables continue, more than 60% of China’s electricity could come from non-fossil sources by 2030 at a cost that is about 10% lower than achieved through a business-as-usual approach.

    • Gang He
    • , Jiang Lin
    •  & Amol Phadke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rising temperatures in the Arctic can lead to the release of vast amounts of carbon stored in permafrost soils. Here the authors show that stratospheric sulfate aerosol injection geoengineering can help to avoid about 14 gigatons of carbon release and US$8.4 trillion in economic losses by 2070 compared to RCP4.5 emissions.

    • Yating Chen
    • , Aobo Liu
    •  & John C. Moore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There lacks a European cost-benefit analysis of possible protective measures against rising seas. Here the authors used a probabilistic data and modeling framework to estimate costs and benefits of coastal protection measures and found that at least 83% of flood damages could be avoided by dyke improvements along a third of the European coastline.

    • Michalis I. Vousdoukas
    • , Lorenzo Mentaschi
    •  & Luc Feyen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To evaluate the effectiveness of current national policies in achieving global temperature targets is important but a systematic multi-model evaluation is still lacking. Here the authors identified a reduction of 3.5 GtCO2 eq of current national policies relative to a baseline scenario without climate policies by 2030 due to the increasing low carbon share of final energy and the improving final energy intensity.

    • Mark Roelfsema
    • , Heleen L. van Soest
    •  & Saritha Sudharmma Vishwanathan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The emission allocation strategies of global scenarios do not specify the potential benefits from extra climate mitigation efforts. Here the authors show that compared to the current Nationally Distributed Contributions, the proposed self-preservation strategy might generate 126–616 trillion dollars of additional benefits by 2100.

    • Yi-Ming Wei
    • , Rong Han
    •  & Zili Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Following international agreements, the use of chlorofluorocarbons in production is supposed to be phased out. Here, the authors present a new estimate of these products already in use and their emissions and show that they are larger than expected and that not recovering these banks leads to a substantial delay in the polar ozone hole recovery.

    • Megan Lickley
    • , Susan Solomon
    •  & Kane Stone

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extreme high temperature events are increasing in frequency and severity, threatening the capacity for crops and farmers alike to adapt. Here Sloat and colleagues track the movement of cereal crops over the past 40 years, finding a global migration away from warming climates.

    • Lindsey L. Sloat
    • , Steven J. Davis
    •  & Nathaniel D. Mueller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors compared the performance of a range of rural water supply types during drought in Ethiopia. They show that prioritising access to groundwater via multiple improved water sources and technologies, such as hand-pumped and motorised boreholes, supported by monitoring and proactive operation and maintenance increases rural water supply resilience.

    • D. J. MacAllister
    • , A. M. MacDonald
    •  & R. Calow

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The contributions of industrial parks towards addressing climate change remains unclear. Here, the authors studied the energy infrastructure of 1604 industrial parks in China and found that by decarbonizing energy infrastructure stocks in the industrial parks, the GHG mitigation potential will achieve 8%~16% relative to the GHG emissions in the baseline scenario with positive economic benefits, water savings and air pollutant emission reductions.

    • Yang Guo
    • , Jinping Tian
    •  & Lyujun Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The carbon footprints of natural gas supplies at the field level are unclear. Here the authors analysed the GHG intensities of gas supplies from 104 fields and show that their GHG intensities range from 6.2 to 43.3 g CO2eq MJ-1.

    • Yu Gan
    • , Hassan M. El-Houjeiri
    •  & Michael Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Robust estimates of either urban expansion worldwide or the effects of such phenomenon on terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP) are lacking. Here the authors used the new dataset of global land use to show that the global urban areas expanded largely between 2000 and 2010, which in turn reduced terrestrial NPP globally.

    • Xiaoping Liu
    • , Fengsong Pei
    •  & Zhu Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There lacks a consistent and holistic evaluation of co-benefits of different mitigation pathways in studies on Integrated Assessment Models. Here the authors quantify environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of a portfolio of alternative power sector decarbonisation pathways and show that the scale of co-benefits as well as profiles of adverse side-effects depend strongly on technology choice.

    • Gunnar Luderer
    • , Michaja Pehl
    •  & Edgar G. Hertwich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Computable General Equilibrium models can hardly decouple economic growth and energy consumption while energy system models can hardly predict macroeconomic implications of energy system changes. Here the authors investigated the macroeconomic implications of consistently dealing with energy systems and the stability of further power generation and show that GDP losses were significantly lower than those in the conventional economic model by more than 50% in 2050, while industry and service sector energy consumption are the main factors causing these differences.

    • Shinichiro Fujimori
    • , Ken Oshiro
    •  & Tomoko Hasegawa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The plant-by-plant retirement needs are not well-understood yet to achieve the rapid transition away from coal use. Here the authors found that operational lifetimes of existing units must be reduced to approximately 35 years to keep warming well below 2 °C or 20 years for 1.5 °C, even if no new capacity comes online.

    • Ryna Yiyun Cui
    • , Nathan Hultman
    •  & Christine Shearer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Assessments of sea level rise risks depend on elevation data. Here, the authors present a new dataset on the Mekong Delta which shows it to have a much lower elevation (0.82 m above sea level) than previously thought – underlying principles may also imply major elevation uncertainties in other deltas.

    • P. S. J. Minderhoud
    • , L. Coumou
    •  & E. Stouthamer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS) is not considered in Integrated Assessment Models. Here the authors make comparisons using multi-model regarding the role of DACCS in 1.5 and 2 degree scenarios and find that DACCS allows to postpone mitigation and reduce the climate policy costs.

    • Giulia Realmonte
    • , Laurent Drouet
    •  & Massimo Tavoni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There lacks model comparison of global land use change projections. Here the authors explored how different long-term drivers determine land use and food availability projections and they showed that the key determinants population growth and improvements in agricultural efficiency.

    • Elke Stehfest
    • , Willem-Jan van Zeist
    •  & Keith Wiebe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aerosol impacts have not been comprehensively considered in the cost-benefit integrated assessment models that are widely used to analyze climate policy. Here the authors account for these impacts and find that the health co-benefits from improved air quality outweigh the co-harms from increased near-term warming, and that optimal climate policy results in immediate net benefits globally.

    • Noah Scovronick
    • , Mark Budolfson
    •  & Fabian Wagner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Southeast Asia’s forests play important roles in the society, but the region is a deforestation hotspot. Here, the authors examined the future changes in the region’s forests under different scenarios and found that by 2050 under a regional rivalry/rocky road scenario, the region’s forests would shrink by 5.2 million ha.

    • Ronald C. Estoque
    • , Makoto Ooba
    •  & Yuji Murayama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evaluating GHG emissions reported to inventories for the oil and gas (O&G) sector is important for countries with resource-based economies. Here the authors provide a top-down assessment of GHG emissions from the Canadian oil sands and find previous inventory reports underestimate emissions, by as much as 64% for surface mining facilities and 30% for the entire oil sands compared with their assessment.

    • John Liggio
    • , Shao-Meng Li
    •  & Felix Vogel

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Recent publications have raised concerns regarding the actual feasibility Negative Emission Technologies (NETs). Here the authors commented on the financial viability of large-scale late century NETs and suggested that expenditure peak will occur in the end of the century, which would require massive global subsidy program.

    • Johannes Bednar
    • , Michael Obersteiner
    •  & Fabian Wagner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The potential of biomass energy carbon capture and storage is unclear. Here the authors estimated the negative emissions potential from highly alkaline materials, by-products and wastes and showed that these materials have a CO2 storage potential of 2.5–7.5 billion tonnes per year by 2100.

    • Phil Renforth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The extent to which China’s existing and forthcoming policies would lead to emission reductions domestically has not been well understood. Here the authors combined expert elicitation and a system dynamic model and showed that China is on track to peak its emissions well in advance of 2030.

    • Kelly Sims Gallagher
    • , Fang Zhang
    •  & Qiang Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is not clear how the public views the acceptability of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Here the authors explored public perceptions of BECCS by situating the technology in three policy scenarios and found that the policy instrument used to incentivise BECCS significantly affects the degree of public support for the technology.

    • Rob Bellamy
    • , Javier Lezaun
    •  & James Palmer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change will affect both the demand for electrical power and the generating capabilities of hydropower plants. Here the authors investigated the combined impact of these effects in the US Pacific Northwest by considering the dynamics of the regional  power grid, where they reveal a profound impact of climate change on power shortfall risk by the year 2035.

    • S. W. D. Turner
    • , N. Voisin
    •  & M. Jourabchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Local air quality co-benefits can provide convincing support for climate action. Here the authors revisited air quality co-benefits of climate action in the context of NDCs and found that 71–99 thousand premature deaths can be avoided each year by 2030, offsetting the climate mitigation costs on a global level.

    • Toon Vandyck
    • , Kimon Keramidas
    •  & Bert Saveyn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Paris Agreement includes bottom-up pledges and top-down warming threshold. Under this setting where countries effectively choose their own fairness principle, this article assesses the global warming implied by each Nationally Determined Contribution to inform the future ratcheting-up process.

    • Yann Robiou du Pont
    •  & Malte Meinshausen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carbon budget is diminishing to comply with the target under 2 °C scenario. Facing the limited capacity to improve energy efficiency, the authors show that steelmaking with inherent decarbonisation process can potentially help achieve 2050 emission reduction targets under 2 °C scenario before 2030.

    • Sicong Tian
    • , Jianguo Jiang
    •  & Vasilije Manovic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rising demand for ruminant meat and dairy products in developing nations drives increasing GHG and ammonia emissions from livestock. Authors show here that only long-term adoption of global best-practice in sustainable intensification buffered by a short-term coping strategy of green-source trading can offer a way forward.

    • Yuanyuan Du
    • , Ying Ge
    •  & Raphael K. Didham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Land-based mitigation for meeting the Paris climate target must consider the carbon cycle impacts of land-use change. Here the authors show that when bioenergy crops replace high carbon content ecosystems, forest-based mitigation could be more effective for CO2 removal than bioenergy crops with carbon capture and storage.

    • Anna B. Harper
    • , Tom Powell
    •  & Shijie Shu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reducing the adverse effects of climate change triggered by human activity requires cooperation on a global scale. Modelling this challenge as an evolutionary game shows that the emerging contributions of selfish players depend strongly on the risk scenario at stake.

    • Maria Abou Chakra
    • , Silke Bumann
    •  & Arne Traulsen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carbon capture and storage can help reduce CO2 emissions but the confidence in geologic CO2 storage security is uncertain. Here the authors present a numerical programme to estimate leakage from wells and find that under appropriate regulation 98% of injected CO2 will be retained over 10,000 years.

    • Juan Alcalde
    • , Stephanie Flude
    •  & R. Stuart Haszeldine

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The management of fire season has been proposed as a climate mitigation tool but the scope and scale of this action is unclear. Here the authors use global emissions datasets to assess emissions mitigation opportunities for savanna fires, highlighting significant reduction potential in 37 countries.

    • Geoffrey J. Lipsett-Moore
    • , Nicholas H. Wolff
    •  & Edward T. Game

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