English references

As the UN gathers, signatories from Bernie Sanders to Yeb Saño issue an open letter calling for clean power for all.

The concepts of Green Growth and Degrowth represent two major narratives in the public and academic debate on socio-ecological transformation. . . Using a comparative analysis of the two research fields, we confirm several findings from previous reviews, including that Green Growth research is highly policy oriented, focuses on practical implementation and builds on empirical research methods, while Degrowth research is highly theory-driven, focuses on the analysis of complex human-nature interrelationships and builds on a sound theoretical and conceptual foundation. Our analysis further reveals that Green Growth and Degrowth are two rather isolated fields of research with little exchange and mutual reference on related topics. However, the topic of social change and transition represents an intersecting and promising future research area. . . .

Chronic exposure to pesticide mixtures through diet is common, yet their combined metabolic effects and interactions with dietary factors remain unclear. We identified four pesticides prevalent in human exposure (imazalil, thiabendazole, boscalid, lambda-cyhalothrin) and assessed their combined impacts on hepatic metabolism and metabolic homeostasis using human liver cells and male mice fed standard chow or western diets. We found that the pesticide mixture induced metabolic perturbations in human hepatocytes. In addition, the pesticide mixture altered hepatic gene expression in chow-fed mice and exacerbated western diet-induced glucose intolerance, fasting hyperglycemia, and insulin resistance without affecting body weight or liver steatosis. These findings reveal that dietary context influences the metabolic consequences of pesticide mixtures, highlighting the need to consider nutritional status when evaluating environmental contaminant risks. Our results suggest that pesticide mixtures at reference doses m

Food security (FS) remains a pressing issue at the global scale. Current literature about FS points to a plethora of causes of food insecurity, among which climate change and the loss of biodiversity are critical to all facets of food security. Building on this notion, we advocate for a comprehensive understanding of drivers of food security, thus contributing by examining climate change and biodiversity as drivers of food security. The interest in this subject stems not only from the scientific community, but also from practitioners and policymakers. However, holistic encapsulation of the relevant literature addressing this subject is currently lacking. This review systematically analyses and categorises the drivers of FS induced by climate change and biodiversity. Following the Systematic Literature Review approach, 342 peer-reviewed studies were selected and synthesised. Our findings identified 11 categories of climate change drivers and 9 categories of biodiversity drivers of FS. These drivers were found

Rising temperatures are set to drive up emissions from wildfires, fermenting wetlands, and melting permafrost, but these feedback loops are poorly captured in climate models. Scientists are racing to make sense of these emissions to gauge how much warming may lie ahead.

Increasing instability of the ocean, ice and atmosphere threatens farming, finance and society. We all need to wake up to that fact.

The climate and nature crisis threatens all aspects of British life, from national security to the food supply. Despite the scale of the risks now facing the UK, there has been no comprehensive national emergency briefing delivered to the public by the Government.

A team including scientists, Indigenous people and conservationists point to the ecosystem connecting Yellowstone and the Yukon as an example of a region where humans and nature are flourishing together.

Climate regime shifts (CRSs), characterized by abrupt and persistent transitions between alternative stable states in the climate system, pose serious threats to ecosystems and human well-being. Understanding the potential drivers of CRSs is crucial, particularly in a warming world where CRSs are becoming more frequent.

Climate change is causing measurable harm globally1,2. Political and legal efforts seek to link these damages with specific emissions, including in discussions of loss and damage (L&D)3,4; however, no quantitative definition of L&D exists5,6, nor is there a framework to link past and future emissions from specific sources to monetized, location-specific damages. Here we develop such a framework, which is integrated with recent efforts to estimate the social cost of carbon7. Using empirical estimates of the non-linear relationship between temperature and aggregate economic output, we show that future damages from past emissions—one component of L&D—are at least an order of magnitude larger than historical damages from the same emissions. For instance, one tonne of CO2 emitted in 1990 caused US$180 in discounted global damages by 2020 ($40–530) and will cause an additional $1,840 through 2100 ($500–5,700). Thus, settling debts for past damages will not settle debts for past emissions. In other illustrative esti

Most research on “forever chemicals” focuses on how best to remove them from the environment. But solutions to tricky problems often emerge from the most unexpected of places—as demonstrated by a new study that instead redirects the pollutants into becoming tools for extracting precious lithium. In a recent Nature Water study, a team led by Rice University researchers describes a novel way to use spent perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, to recover lithium from high-salinity brine pools. The team tapped into the fluorine content inside PFAS leftovers, using it to attract lithium from briny water. Remarkably, the team was able to collect lithium fluoride at 99% purity and confirmed that the sample was pure enough to boost the stability and performance of lithium-ion batteries.

The Gulf Stream is part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The AMOC is a tipping element and may collapse under changing forcing. However, the role of the Gulf Stream in such a tipping event is unknown. Here, we investigate the link between the AMOC and Gulf Stream using a high-resolution (0. 1°) stand-alone ocean simulation, in which the AMOC collapses under a slowly-increasing freshwater forcing. AMOC weakening gradually shifts the Gulf Stream near Cape Hatteras northward, followed by an abrupt northward displacement of 219 km within 2 years. This rapid shift occurs a few decades before the simulated AMOC collapse. Satellite altimetry shows a significant (1993–2024, p < 0.05) northward Gulf Stream trend near Cape Hatteras, which is also confirmed in subsurface temperature observations (1965–2024, p < 0.01). These findings provide indirect evidence for present-day AMOC weakening and demonstrate that abrupt Gulf Stream shifts can serve as early warning indicator for AMOC tipping.

The decline in the health of nature around the world poses a threat to the UK's security and prosperity, an intelligence committee has concluded in a long-awaited report. The document warns of "cascading risks" from the degradation of some of the planet's most important ecosystems, including conflict, migration and increased competition for resources.

Cutting-edge materials and thoughtful urban planning can help cities beat the negative heating effects of climate change.

Exclusive: Ben Goldsmith will work on issues including fishing and green belt preservation to attract green Tories

The doughnut-shaped framework of social and planetary boundaries (the ‘Doughnut’) provides a concise visual assessment of progress towards the goal of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet1,2,3. Here we present a renewed Doughnut framework with a revised set of 35 indicators that monitor trends in social deprivation and ecological overshoot over the 2000–2022 period. Although global gross domestic product (GDP) has more than doubled, our median results show a modest achievement in reducing human deprivation that would have to accelerate fivefold to meet the needs of all people by 2030.

We report striking discoveries of numerous seafloor seeps of climate-reactive fluid and gases in the coastal Ross Sea, indicating this process may be a common phenomenon in the region. We establish the recent emergence of many of these seep features, based on their discovery in areas routinely surveyed for decades with no previous seep presence. Additionally, we highlight impacts to the local benthic ecosystem correlated to seep presence and discuss potential broader implications. With these discoveries, our understanding of Antarctic seafloor seeps shifts from them being rare phenomenon to seemingly widespread, and an important question is raised about the driver of seep emergence in the region. While the origin and underlying mechanisms of these emerging seep systems remains unknown, similar processes in the paleo-record and the Arctic have been attributed to climate-driven cryospheric change. Such a mechanism may be widespread around the Antarctic Continent, with concerning positive feedbacks that are curr

Predictably, soon, most young people will reject extremist views. This will be none too soon because it is the essential step leading to global political leadership that appreciates the threat posed by climate’s delayed response to human-made changes of Earth’s atmosphere. Then the annual fraud of goals for future “net zero” emissions announced at United Nations COP (Conference of Parties) meetings might be replaced by realistic climate policies. It is important, by that time, that we have better knowledge of the degree and rate at which human-made forcing of the climate system must be decreased to avoid irreversible, unacceptable consequences.

The global economy could face a 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090, unless immediate policy action on risks posed by the climate crisis is taken. Populations are already impacted by food system shocks, water insecurity, heat stress and infectious diseases. If unchecked, mass mortality, mass displacement, severe economic contraction and conflict become more likely.

Global risk management for human prosperity