Earth and environmental sciences articles within Nature Climate Change

Featured

  • Research Briefing |

    Our multi-model analysis of international shipping shows the potential for decreasing global annual emissions in the coming decades, up to a reduction of 86% by 2050. Drop-in biofuels, renewable alcohols and green ammonia stand out as the main substitutes for conventional maritime fuels.

  • Article |

    International maritime shipping accounts for an important proportion of global CO2 emissions, but its role in a world with deep decarbonization has not been thoroughly examined. Through a multi-model comparison, this study reveals the necessity of reducing and stabilizing emissions from this sector in the next few decades.

    • Eduardo Müller-Casseres
    • , Florian Leblanc
    •  & Roberto Schaeffer

  • Feature |

    Scientists and health professionals acknowledge that climate change is also a health emergency, but responses have been slow. Now, citizens and experts are turning to the courts as a path towards accountability, action and adaptation.

    • Yessenia Funes

  • Editorial |

    The climate crisis is also an urgent and ongoing health crisis with diverse human impacts leading to physical, mental and cultural losses. Translating knowledge into action involves broad collaboration, which relies heavily on careful communication of a personal and politicized issue.

  • Q&A |

    Last December saw the inaugural Health Day at a Climate Conference of the Parties (COP) and the announcement of the COP28 UAE Declaration on Climate and Health, marking a substantial step in global recognition of the intersecting crises of climate change and health. Nature Climate Change speaks to Maria Neira, director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health at the World Health Organization, about successes and next steps.

    • Tegan Armarego-Marriott

  • Viewpoint |

    Climate change is a health emergency, impacting multiple facets of human well-being via direct and indirect pathways. Nature Climate Change asked experts from different health fields to share their thoughts on the urgent issues and possible paths forward.

    • Wenjia Cai
    • , Jessica Fanzo
    •  & Elizabeth Marks

  • Article |

    Projections of Arctic warming have large uncertainties. Here the authors consider ocean heat transport and its contribution to Arctic warming; high-resolution model results show increased Bering Strait transport compared with lower-resolution results, with implications for projected warming rates.

    • Gaopeng Xu
    • , M. Cameron Rencurrel
    •  & Qiuying Zhang

  • Policy Brief |

    Meeting the Paris Agreement targets requires deep emissions reductions supported by a scale-up in carbon dioxide removal. However, current country-reported mitigation pledges are off track to meet carbon dioxide removal needs, unless countries dramatically reduce emissions consistent with low-energy-demand scenarios.

    • William F. Lamb
    • , Thomas Gasser
    •  & Jan C. Minx

  • Analysis |

    Carbon dioxide removals (CDR) have been integrated into country-submitted reports under the Paris Agreement. However, this Analysis finds a gap between levels of CDR in these national proposals and the scenarios limiting global warming to the 1.5 °C target.

    • William F. Lamb
    • , Thomas Gasser
    •  & Jan C. Minx

  • Perspective |

    In this Perspective, the authors develop a risk assessment framework for forest microbiomes under climate change that unites microbial and forest ecology. They define processes that amplify or buffer microbial sensitivity and exposure risk and feedbacks that mediate impacts on microbial communities.

    • C. E. Willing
    • , P. T. Pellitier
    •  & K. G. Peay

  • Analysis |

    The authors perform a meta-analysis to assess current and future capacities of healthcare systems under climate change. They summarize the key focus points of current literature and highlight the need for effective policies, trained workforces and redesigned infrastructure to meet future burdens.

    • Jeffrey Braithwaite
    • , Elle Leask
    •  & Yvonne Zurynski

  • Analysis |

    Methane emissions from abandoned mines have been underestimated in emissions inventories even though they may become a dominant source of emissions as coal is phased out. Using a detailed bottom-up dataset, the authors find that a strategy targeting the closure of gas-rich mines could have a large mitigation potential

    • Qiang Liu
    • , Fei Teng
    •  & Lixin Wu

  • News & Views |

    Residents of informal settlements suffer from extreme weather due to their precarious living environment. Now, findings show that extreme weather event thresholds do not fully capture the negative impacts experienced by women in Nairobi, Kenya.

    • Lauren Broyles

  • Article |

    Defining thresholds for extreme weather events is important for adaptation but often ignores impacts on climate-vulnerable communities. This research finds current practices do not capture experiences of women in informal settlements and self-reported impact data could help to address the issue.

    • Samantha C. Winter
    • , Mark R. Winter
    •  & Susan S. Witte

  • News & Views |

    Global projections of the economic impacts of climate change have usually focused on rising average temperatures. Now, two studies depict more complex and gloomier scenarios by incorporating variability in temperature and precipitation.

    • Matteo Coronese

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Existing global economic damage assessments only focus on the impacts induced by annual temperature changes. Including variability and extremes of temperature and precipitation in climate damage projections raises global gross domestic product losses and exacerbates global disparities of economic damage.

    • Paul Waidelich
    • , Fulden Batibeniz
    •  & Sonia I. Seneviratne

  • News & Views |

    International cooperation is essential to mitigate climate change, yet it comes with challenges that often hinder countries from achieving their climate targets. Now, a study shows that timely monitoring and review of national climate mitigation efforts are essential for the Paris Agreement to accomplish its targets.

    • Nada Maamoun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen marked an important step in global climate action with parties submitting 2020 mitigation targets. However, this retrospective study shows that many countries either have failed to meet their targets or have reduced their emissions through carbon leakage.

    • Shuping Li
    • , Jing Meng
    •  & Dabo Guan

  • Editorial |

    Policies and subsidies can help, and have helped, to establish the electric vehicle market. As subsidies are withdrawn and policies shift, the public will play a role in the future market infiltration.

  • Article |

    Hydrological sensitivity describes how much precipitation changes for a given warming. Here, the authors show that the hydrological sensitivity differs between the three tropical ocean basins, which influences land rainfall changes across the tropical and mid-latitude regions.

    • Jie He
    • , Kezhou Lu
    •  & Stephan A. Fueglistaler

  • News & Views |

    Meteorites recovered from Antarctica provide a bounty of materials from asteroids and planets and revolutionized the field of meteoritics. Warming temperatures in Antarctica may lead to the loss of a significant fraction of meteorites exposed at the surface and thus threaten the impact Antarctic meteorites have on planetary science.

    • Kevin Righter

  • Comment |

    Following a groundswell of voluntary net-zero targets by companies, regulators are increasingly introducing mandatory rules. If governments can overcome the barriers to rigour, coherence and fairness, such mandatory ‘ground rules’ have the potential to overcome the obstructionism that holds back a just climate transition.

    • Thomas Hale
    • , Thom Wetzer
    •  & Rupert Stuart-Smith

  • Brief Communication
    | Open Access

    Most of the meteorites on the Earth’s surface are found in Antarctica. Here the authors show that ~5,000 meteorites become inaccessible per year as they melt into the ice due to climate change.

    • Veronica Tollenaar
    • , Harry Zekollari
    •  & Frank Pattyn

  • Comment |

    Many cities are developing plans and strategies to achieve net-zero emissions and combat climate change. However, the operational value of residual emissions remains unknown, thus challenging the integrity, transparency and impact of such pledges.

    • Giulia Ulpiani
    • , Nadja Vetters
    •  & Christian Thiel

  • Article |

    Using a global meta-analysis approach, the authors show that elevated CO2 alone can increase primary productivity and leaf C/N ratio and stimulate nitrogen fixation and nitrogen use efficiency. They project increasing carbon sink and decreasing reactive nitrogen loss under climate change.

    • Jinglan Cui
    • , Miao Zheng
    •  & Baojing Gu

  • Article |

    Rapid population ageing is challenging for climate adaptation. Considering ageing demographics and green infrastructure development in 26,885 Southeast Asian communities, the authors find a reduction in green space in ageing communities, especially in socio-economically disadvantaged areas, with implications for vulnerability.

    • Ji Soo Kim
    •  & Seung Kyum Kim

  • Policy Brief |

    The worldwide trend of decreasing corporate tax in recent years has contributed to an increase in global carbon emissions, but implementing a global minimum tax rate of 15% could partially mitigate this impact. Policymakers should coordinate corporate tax policies with climate regulations.

    • Yuwan Duan
    • , Zengkai Zhang
    •  & Yi Lu

  • Perspective |

    Global climate change will continue to reconfigure water resources and lead to more extreme events. Water markets may provide a low-cost adaptation tool. This Perspective discusses the opportunities and challenges for surface and groundwater markets to manage water resources.

    • Ellen M. Bruno
    •  & Katrina Jessoe

  • Article |

    Countries use corporate tax cuts to attract foreign investment, which reshapes patterns of global production. This research shows that such competition will lead to higher carbon emissions and shift them to developing countries, while a global minimum tax could help alleviate these problems.

    • Yuwan Duan
    • , Zengkai Zhang
    •  & Yi Lu

  • News & Views |

    The ocean stores about 30% of the carbon emitted by human activities, regulating atmospheric CO2 levels and the Earth’s climate. Research suggests that this uptake of CO2 has strengthened much faster in coastal ocean waters than in the open ocean due to enhanced biological activity.

    • Laure Resplandy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The coastal ocean is a dynamic environment, and CO2 uptake is increasing faster than in the open ocean. Incorporating coastal processes into a global model shows that biological responses to climate-induced circulation changes and riverine nutrient inputs are key to the enhanced uptake.

    • Moritz Mathis
    • , Fabrice Lacroix
    •  & Corinna Schrum

  • Analysis
    | Open Access

    Nature-based climate solutions are widely incorporated into climate change mitigation plans and need firm scientific foundations. Through literature review and expert elicitation, this analysis shows that for some major pathways there is strong support, while for others their efficacy remains uncertain.

    • B. Buma
    • , D. R. Gordon
    •  & S. P. Hamburg

  • Article |

    How the climate system changes under negative emissions is not well known. Here the authors show that the mid-latitude storm tracks change in an asymmetric way, leading to stronger Northern Hemisphere and weaker Southern Hemisphere storm tracks after recovery to present-day CO2 concentrations.

    • Jaeyoung Hwang
    • , Seok-Woo Son
    •  & Jongsoo Shin

  • Comment |

    Mitigation and adaptation strategies have historically been, and continue to be, developed separately. The climate is already changing and integration of adaptation and mitigation in policy and practice is now urgently needed.

    • Candice Howarth
    •  & Elizabeth J. Z. Robinson

  • Research Briefing |

    Analysis of patent data from 1990 to 2019 reveals a global decline in the invention and international diffusion of high-quality methane-targeted abatement technologies (MTATs) from 2010 to 2019. Moreover, there is a mismatch between where MTAT inventions are concentrated and the countries or regions expected to have most growth in future methane emissions.

  • Analysis
    | Open Access

    Innovations in methane-targeted abatement technologies (MTAT) are needed to curb climate change in the short term. This Analysis reveals the trend, distributions and diffusion of MTAT-related patents for the past few decades, highlighting the mismatch between emissions sources and technical capacity.

    • Jingjing Jiang
    • , Deyun Yin
    •  & Nan Zhou

  • Article |

    Grazing has been shown to have diverse effects on soil carbon, with local variation. This study assesses carbon changes related to grazing globally and finds that, although grazing has reduced soil carbon stocks, managing intensity could increase carbon uptake in both soils and vegetation.

    • Shuai Ren
    • , César Terrer
    •  & Dan Liu

  • Article |

    It is important to detect human influence on the climate, but natural variability can hide signals of change. Here the authors show the anthropogenic signal has emerged for sea surface temperature seasonality, primarily driven by greenhouse gas increases, and with geographical differences in change.

    • Jia-Rui Shi
    • , Benjamin D. Santer
    •  & Susan E. Wijffels

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Earth and environmental sciences across other nature.com journals