English references

Suspension of Soy moratorium could open up area of rainforest the size of Portugal to destruction

The Kenyan marine ecologist David Obura is chair of a panel of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the world’s leading natural scientists. For many decades, his speciality has been corals, but he has warned that the next generation may not see their glory because so many reefs are now “flickering out across the world”.

For more than three decades, Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre has warned that deforestation of the Amazon could push this globally important ecosystem past the point of no return. Working first at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research and more recently at the University of São Paulo, he is a global authority on tropical forests and how they could be restored.

Economic assumptions about risks of the climate crisis are no longer relevant, says the communications expert Genevieve Guenther

The world has been too optimistic about the risk to humanity and planet – but devastation can still be avoided, says Timothy Lenton

Despite working on polar science for the British Antarctic Survey for 20 years, Louise Sime finds the magnitude of potential sea-level rise hard to comprehend

Oceanographer Stefan Rahmstorf explains why Amoc breakdown could be catastrophic for both humans and marine life

If despair is the most unforgivable sin, then hope is surely the most abused virtue. That observation feels particularly apposite as we enter the Cop season, that time of United Nations megaconferences at the end of every year, when national leaders feel obliged to convince us the future will be better, despite growing evidence to the contrary.

The signs of weakening resilience raise concerns that the world’s greatest tropical forest – and biggest terrestrial carbon sink – is degrading towards a point of no return. It follows four supposedly “one-in-a-century” dry spells in less than 20 years, highlighting how a human-disrupted climate is putting unusually intense strains on trees and other plants, many of which are dying of dehydration.

Cost of environmental damage will be six times higher than price of limiting global heating to 2C, study finds

If the anomaly does not stabilise by August, ‘the world will be in uncharted territory’, says climate expert

Collapse in system of currents that helps regulate global climate would be at such speed that adaptation would be impossible

Rapid ocean warming and unusually hot winter days recorded as human-made global heating combines with El Niño

Existing production destroys more value than it creates due to medical and environmental costs, researchers say

Population likely to peak sooner and lower than expected with beneficial results – but environment is priority

Extreme weather is ‘smacking us in the face’ with worse to come, but a ‘tiny window’ of hope remains, say leading climate scientists

Human-caused climate disruption and El Niño push temperature in mountains to 37C

Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems could collapse ‘very soon’, researchers warn

Going beyond climate disruption, the report by the Earth Commission group of scientists presents disturbing evidence that our planet faces growing crises of water availability, nutrient loading, ecosystem maintenance and aerosol pollution. These pose threats to the stability of life-support systems and worsen social equality.

The author and eminent climate scientist on the deniers’ new tactics and why positive change feels closer than it has done in 20 years