Spotlight |
Featured
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Article
| Open Access
The economic commitment of climate change
Analysis of projected sub-national damages from temperature and precipitation show an income reduction of 19% of the world economy within the next 26 years independent of future emission choices.
- Maximilian Kotz
- , Anders Levermann
- & Leonie Wenz
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News |
Revealed: the ten research papers that policy documents cite most
An exclusive analysis shows that economics and interdisciplinary teams get the attention of policymakers.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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Article
| Open Access
Last-mile delivery increases vaccine uptake in Sierra Leone
A cluster randomized controlled trial in Sierra Leone shows that targeting access to vaccines in remote areas increases uptake, an approach that can be used to improve vaccine equity in developing countries.
- Niccolò F. Meriggi
- , Maarten Voors
- & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak
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Article
| Open Access
Global supply chains amplify economic costs of future extreme heat risk
A global high-resolution disaster footprint analytical model is developed to show substantial socioeconomic impacts from climatic change-driven heat stress through the global supply chain by 2060 due to direct and indirect effects on health and labour productivity.
- Yida Sun
- , Shupeng Zhu
- & Dabo Guan
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Book Review |
Act now to prevent a ‘gold rush’ in outer space
As private firms aim for the Moon and beyond, a book calls for an urgent relook at the legal compact that governs space exploration.
- Timiebi Aganaba
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Spotlight |
How science is helping farmers to find a balance between agriculture and solar farms
In the French countryside, energy companies are rushing to set up solar farms, with the risk of marginalizing agriculture. Researchers are finding solutions.
- Magali Reinert
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Perspective |
Optimally generate policy-based evidence before scaling
To reduce voltage drops—the depreciation of the cost–benefit profile when scaling up solutions to social problems—sufficient policy-based evidence must be generated before policymakers scale up the project.
- John A. List
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Correspondence |
Deep-sea mining opponents: there’s no free lunch when it comes to clean energy
- Saleem H. Ali
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Correspondence |
Replace Norway as co-chair of High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy
- Diva J. Amon
- , Douglas J. McCauley
- & Henrik Österblom
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News |
Piracy at sea is waning — but hotspots remain
A greater understanding of pirate attacks can help to inform the development of countermeasures.
- Freda Kreier
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News & Views |
Urban youth most isolated in largest cities
GPS data reveal that young people encounter fewer individuals from diverse groups than do adults. The isolation of young people is exacerbated in larger cities, and for those living in poverty.
- Victor Couture
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Correspondence |
Panama says no to more mining — a win for environmentalists
- Juan Carlos Villarreal A.
- , Nelva B. Villarreal
- & Luis F. De León
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Spotlight |
Politics and the environment collide in Brazil: Lula’s first year back in office
Brazil’s left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva grapples with deforestation, fossil-fuel pledges and commitments to Indigenous communities — all while having to work with a conservative Congress.
- Meghie Rodrigues
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Comment |
To build a better world, stop chasing economic growth
The year 2024 must be a turning point for shifting policies away from gross domestic product and towards sustainable well-being. Here’s why and how.
- Robert Costanza
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Career Feature |
How to land a scientific position even in a struggling economy
It’s tough out there, but career experts discuss how applicants can stand out from the crowd.
- Rachel Crowell
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Spotlight |
India’s year in science
The country has made history in many ways in 2023, but is it using science and technology enough to help its economic and social development?
- Jack Leeming
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Spotlight |
Where science meets Indian economics: in five charts
Nature explores how better investment in science might help India’s economic development.
- Andy Tay
- & Jack Leeming
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Spotlight |
Renewable energy for the subcontinent
India has invested heavily in wind, solar and storage technology to hit net zero by 2070, but some don’t think it’s doing enough.
- Bianca Nogrady
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Spotlight |
Big ideas: India’s drive to stem the brain drain
The Ramalingaswami Re-entry fellowship is among a number of schemes set up to attract talented scientists back to India. Diaspora and returning researchers share their career decisions.
- Virginia Gewin
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Nature Careers Podcast |
The Chandrayaan lunar landing and how it could impact India’s brain drain
Astrophysicist and university vice-chancellor Somak Raychaudhury outlines the significance of the country’s space programme.
- Jack Leeming
- & Julie Gould
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Nature Podcast |
The low carbon cost of alleviating poverty
New modeling study suggests that reducing global poverty does not have to derail decarbonization efforts
- Alex Lathbridge
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Nature Podcast |
The world’s smallest light-trapping silicon cavity
Researchers exploit intermolecular forces to carve a nanoscale hole, and investigating whether poverty can be reduced without increasing emissions.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Shamini Bundell
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News & Views |
Tackling extreme poverty around the world need not impede climate action
A study has revealed that eliminating extreme poverty would result in a relatively small increase in global greenhouse-gas emissions, dispelling the idea that efforts to combat climate change and poverty are incompatible.
- Katharine L. Ricke
- & Gordon C. McCord
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Article |
Remote collaboration fuses fewer breakthrough ideas
Analysis of research articles and patent applications shows that members of teams that collaborate remotely are less likely to make breakthrough discoveries than members of on-site teams.
- Yiling Lin
- , Carl Benedikt Frey
- & Lingfei Wu
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Comment |
Climate loss-and-damage funding: how to get money to where it’s needed fast
Finance for coping with the harms of climate change must be disbursed swiftly and pragmatically. The world’s largest existing climate fund for supporting climate mitigation and adaptation provides lessons.
- Laura Kuhl
- , Istiakh Ahmed
- & Saleemul Huq
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Comment |
Climate loss-and-damage funding: a mechanism to make it work
Compensating for the devastating impacts of heatwaves, hurricanes and floods after they occur is too slow. With climate risks accelerating, the world must predict who needs funds and when.
- Richard H. Clarke
- , Noah J. Wescombe
- & Domenico Lombardi
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Spotlight |
How Paris is becoming a happy home for health-technology start-up companies
A long-term investment plan is helping the French capital to attract talent.
- Nic Fleming
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Correspondence |
Quantify wild areas that optimize agricultural yields
- Iris Berger
- , Lynn V. Dicks
- & Francisco d’Albertas Gomes de Carvalho
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News |
Why women earn less than men: Nobel for economic historian who probed pay gap
Claudia Goldin mined 200 years of data to show that greater economic growth did not lead to wage parity, nor to more women in the workplace.
- Philip Ball
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Comment |
Replication games: how to make reproducibility research more systematic
In some areas of social science, around half of studies can’t be replicated. A new test-fast, fail-fast initiative aims to show what research is hot — and what’s not.
- Abel Brodeur
- , Anna Dreber
- & Edward Miguel
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News Feature |
Do you really know the way the world is heading? Take this quiz on plans to save humanity
The United Nations has ambitious aims to end poverty and clean up the planet by 2030. See whether you know how the world is faring on the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Ehsan Masood
- & Richard Van Noorden
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Comment |
Carbon offsets aren’t helping the planet — four ways to fix them
Pricing credits according to how much carbon is removed, for how long and how reliably, would direct funding to the most effective climate solutions.
- Philip W. Boyd
- , Lennart Bach
- & Christian Turney
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Editorial |
Reducing inequality benefits everyone — so why isn’t it happening?
Those urging world leaders to take action on inequality should study why earlier efforts did not translate to changes in policy.
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Editorial |
GDP at 70: why genuinely sustainable development means settling a debate at the heart of economics
Researchers advocating reform of the world’s main measure of growth have an opportunity to participate in the process that sets the rules.
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News & Views |
A call to reduce the carbon costs of forest harvest
Economic modelling of the global carbon cost of harvesting wood from forests shows a much higher annual cost than that estimated by other models, highlighting a major opportunity for reducing emissions by limiting wood harvests.
- William R. Moomaw
- & Beverly E. Law
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Comment |
How to introduce quantum computers without slowing economic growth
To smooth the path of the quantum revolution, researchers and governments must predict and prepare for the traps ahead.
- Chander Velu
- & Fathiro H. R. Putra
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Article |
A planetary health innovation for disease, food and water challenges in Africa
By harvesting aquatic vegetation that provides habitat for snails that harbour Schistosoma parasites and converting it to compost and animal feed, a trial reduced schistosomiasis prevalence in children while providing wider economic benefits.
- Jason R. Rohr
- , Alexandra Sack
- & Caitlin Wolfe
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Article |
The social value of offsets
An analysis proposes the social value of offsets to measure the amount of carbon that should be stored in temporary and risky offsets to compensate one ton of CO2 emissions.
- Ben Groom
- & Frank Venmans
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Editorial |
Hunger and famine are not accidents — they are created by the actions of people
Hundreds of millions of people are going hungry as conflicts affect food supplies. There is also growing evidence that food producers are exploiting the situation to increase their profits.
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Book Review |
Why economic crashes boost globalization — and tear it apart
Responses to financial crashes, pandemics and other crises spur progress, through cycles of inward and outward change.
- Mark Buchanan
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World View |
How ‘research impact bonds’ could transform science funding
Current funding models have high risks and low accountability. Public–private partnerships offer a better way.
- Michael Hill
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Spotlight |
By the numbers: China’s changing diet
Data show that the Chinese middle class is eating a higher-fat, less-healthy diet — a trend reflected in the increases in heart disease and childhood obesity.
- Yvaine Ye
- & Jack Leeming
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Editorial |
The world’s plan to make humanity sustainable is failing. Science can do more to save it
There is no planet B, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are heading for the rocks. Researchers around the world must do their bit to change that.
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News & Views |
Golden jubilee for an iconic financial formula
Fifty years ago, an equation called the Black–Scholes formula revolutionized finance, leading to a rapid growth of markets and stimulating quantitatively oriented minds. But, with time, its simplicity became a liability — and yet its legacy persists.
- Blanka N. Horvath
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Editorial |
Why ideas of ‘planetary boundaries’ must uphold environmental justice
Earth-system boundaries define a safe operating space for humanity. Accounting for the planet’s most vulnerable people provides a stark warning of the work still to be done.'
CERN’s impact goes way beyond tiny particles