Climate-change mitigation articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Expansion of rubber plantations threatens tropical forest carbon stocks and biodiversity, but may be dis-incentivised using carbon finance. Here, Warren-Thomas et al. use forest and agricultural data for Cambodia to show that carbon prices of $30–$51 per tCO2 are needed to match forest protection costs.

    • Eleanor M. Warren-Thomas
    • , David P. Edwards
    •  & Paul M. Dolman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Depending on where and when it occurs, vegetation cover change can affect local climate by altering the surface energy balance. Based on satellite data, this study provides the first data-driven assessment of such effects for multiple vegetation transitions at global scale.

    • Gregory Duveiller
    • , Josh Hooker
    •  & Alessandro Cescatti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deforestation carbon emissions from the Brazilian Amazon have declined steeply, but how much drought-induced forest fire emissions add to this process is still unclear. Here the authors show that gross emissions from forest fires are more than half as great as those from deforestation during drought years.

    • Luiz E. O. C. Aragão
    • , Liana O. Anderson
    •  & Sassan Saatchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The use of drones to deliver commercial packages is poised to become a new industry. Here the authors show that replacing truck delivery by drones can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use when the drone size and additional warehousing requirements are limited.

    • Joshuah K. Stolaroff
    • , Constantine Samaras
    •  & Daniel Ceperley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aerosol pollution from shipping contributes to cooling but also leads to premature mortality and morbidity. Here the authors combine emission inventories, atmospheric models and health risk functions to show how cleaner marine fuels will reduce premature deaths and childhood asthma but results in larger warming.

    • Mikhail Sofiev
    • , James J. Winebrake
    •  & James J. Corbett

  • Article
    | Open Access

    China has entered a new normal phase of economic development with a changing role in global trade. Here the authors show that emissions embodied in China’s exports declined from 2007 to 2012, while developing countries become the major destinations of China’s export emissions.

    • Zhifu Mi
    • , Jing Meng
    •  & Klaus Hubacek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cool roofs have been shown to mitigate heat in urban areas, but their impact on water conservation has not been examined. Here the authors conduct simulations with an urban canopy model to show that implementation of cool roofs in California can also reduce outdoor water consumption by up to 9%.

    • Pouya Vahmani
    •  & Andrew D. Jones

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impacts of carbon capture and storage (CCS) on subsurface microorganisms are poorly understood. Here, the authors show that deep ecosystems respond quickly to CO2 injections and that the environmental consequences of their metabolic activities need to be properly assessed for sustainable CCS in basalt.

    • Rosalia Trias
    • , Bénédicte Ménez
    •  & Emmanuelle Gérard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The pledges put forward by each country to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement are ambiguous. Rogeljet al. quantify the uncertainty arising from the interpretation of these pledges and find that by 2030 global emissions can vary by −10% to +20% around their median estimate of 52 GtCO2e yr−1.

    • Joeri Rogelj
    • , Oliver Fricko
    •  & Keywan Riahi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change may alter building energy demand. Here, the authors quantify changes in residential electricity and natural gas demand in Los Angeles County and find that rising temperatures may increase electricity demand by 41–87% between 2020 and 2060, but improved efficiency could lower this increase to 28%.

    • Janet L. Reyna
    •  & Mikhail V. Chester

  • Article
    | Open Access

    COP21 led to a global commitment to decarbonization before 2100 to combat climate change, but leaves the timing and scale of mitigation efforts to individual countries. Here, the authors show that global carbon emissions need to peak within a decade to maintain realistic pathways for achieving the Paris Agreement.

    • Brian Walsh
    • , Philippe Ciais
    •  & Michael Obersteiner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A large proportion of methane emissions from natural gas production sites are released by a fraction of high-emitting sources. Here, using Monte Carlo simulations, the authors reveal that super-emitters occur due to abnormal process conditions, explaining component and site-based inventory discrepancies.

    • Daniel Zavala-Araiza
    • , Ramón A Alvarez
    •  & Steven P. Hamburg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While the photovoltaic industry aims to achieve cleaner energy production, it consumes energy and emits greenhouse gases during production and deployment. Here, Louwenet al. show that the industry has likely already reached break-even points for both greenhouse gases emissions and electricity consumption.

    • Atse Louwen
    • , Wilfried G. J. H. M. van Sark
    •  & Ruud E. I. Schropp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Black carbon (BC) contributes positively to the radiation budget, yet models are unable to correctly capture its seasonal variability in the Arctic. Here, the authors demonstrate improved model skill in simulating BC concentration and sources when including estimates of BC emissions from fires.

    • P Winiger
    • , A Andersson
    •  & Ö. Gustafsson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Land biosphere uptake of carbon is important in mitigating the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2and its climate forcing. Here, the authors show that land biosphere uptake of carbon in Asia has increased substantially since the mid 1990s, likely owing to reforestation and regional climate change.

    • R. L. Thompson
    • , P. K. Patra
    •  & P. Ciais

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Greenhouse-gas forcing has previously been thought to be rather ineffective at destroying the habitability of Earth-like planets. Here, the authors show that CO2is as effective as solar forcing at causing a climate transition to a Moist-Greenhouse regime and thus poses an equal threat to a planet's habitability.

    • Max Popp
    • , Hauke Schmidt
    •  & Jochem Marotzke

  • Article |

    It is widely acknowledged that some form of carbon capture will be necessary to limit global warming to less than 2 °C, but to what extent remains unclear. Here, using climate-carbon models, the authors quantify the amount of negative emissions and carbon storage capacity required to meet this target.

    • T. Gasser
    • , C. Guivarch
    •  & P. Ciais

  • Review Article |

    Carbon mitigation is considered an important and viable pathway towards climate stabilization, but competition for land is high. Here, Canadell and Schulze consider the sustainable implementation of a number of land-based biological carbon mitigation activities and assess the carbon savings achievable by 2050.

    • Josep G. Canadell
    •  & E. Detlef Schulze

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The risks of flooding to coastal communities are increasing due to coastal development and climate change. Here, the authors use meta-analyses to quantitatively show that coral reefs can significantly reduce risks from natural hazards, and that reef defences can be enhanced cost effectively.

    • Filippo Ferrario
    • , Michael W. Beck
    •  & Laura Airoldi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The storage in soils of biochar, the product of biomass pyrolysis, has been proposed as an attractive option to mitigate climate change. Amonette and co-workers model the potential impact of biochar and find that it could eliminate more carbon from the atmosphere than using the same biomass for biofuel.

    • Dominic Woolf
    • , James E. Amonette
    •  & Stephen Joseph

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