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We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet's vital signs are flashing red. The consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer future threats but are here now. This unfolding emergency stems from failed foresight, political inaction, unsustainable economic systems, and misinformation. Almost every corner of the biosphere is reeling from intensifying heat, storms, floods, droughts, or fires. The window to prevent the worst outcomes is rapidly closing. In early 2025, the World Meteorological Organization reported that 2024 was the hottest year on record (WMO 2025a). This was likely hotter than the peak of the last interglacial, roughly 125,000 years ago (Gulev et al. 2021, Kaufman and McKay 2022). Rising levels of greenhouse gases remain the driving force behind this escalation. These recent developments emphasize the extreme insufficiency of global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mark the beginning of a grim new chapter for life on Earth.

Purpose Animal emissions account for nearly 60% of total greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector. To estimate these emissions, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) developed a dedicated module within the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM). Although previous studies have explored selected inputs for specific animals and emission types, a comprehensive analysis of all 92 inputs (parameters and emission factors) had not been conducted. This study aimed to identify the most influential inputs affecting ruminant emissions in GLEAM.

Identifying the socio-economic drivers behind greenhouse gas emissions is crucial to design mitigation policies. Existing studies predominantly analyze short-term CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, neglecting long-term trends and other GHGs. We examine the drivers of all greenhouse gas emissions between 1820–2050 globally and regionally. The Industrial Revolution triggered sustained emission growth worldwide—initially through fossil fuel use in industrialized economies but also as a result of agricultural expansion and deforestation. Globally, technological innovation and energy mix changes prevented 31 (17–42) Gt CO2e emissions over two centuries. Yet these gains were dwarfed by 81 (64–97) Gt CO2e resulting from economic expansion, with regional drivers diverging sharply: population growth dominated in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, while rising affluence was the main driver of emissions elsewhere. Meeting climate targets now requires the carbon intensity of GDP to decline 3 times faster than the global

We investigate the probabilities of triggering climate tipping points under five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and how they are altered by including the additional carbon emissions that could arise from tipping points within the Earth's carbon cycle. The crossing of a climate tipping point at a threshold level of global mean surface temperature (threshold temperature) would commit the affected subsystem of the Earth to abrupt and largely irreversible changes with negative impacts on human well-being. However, it remains unclear which tipping points would be triggered under the different SSPs due to uncertainties in the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, the threshold temperatures and timescales of climate tipping points, and the response of tipping points within the Earth's carbon cycle to global warming. We include those uncertainties in our analysis to derive probabilities of triggering for 16 previously identified climate tipping points within the Earth system.

Under current emission trajectories, temporarily overshooting the Paris global warming limit of 1.5 °C is a distinct possibility. Permanently exceeding this limit would substantially increase the probability of triggering climate tipping elements. Here, we investigate the tipping risks associated with several policy-relevant future emission scenarios, using a stylised Earth system model of four interconnected climate tipping elements.

Plug gaps to measure ozone-destroying chemicals and greenhouse gases and verify compliance with Paris and Montreal treaties.

The centerpiece of the early anthropogenic hypothesis is the claim that humans took control of greenhouse-gas trends thousands of years ago because of emissions from early agriculture ( [32] and [33]). A common reaction to this claim is that too few people lived thousands of years ago to have had a major effect on either land use or greenhouse-gas concentrations.

If the global consumption of fossil fuels continues to grow at its present rate, atmospheric CO2 content will double in about 50 years. Climatic models suggest that the resultant greenhouse-warming effect will be greatly magnified in high latitudes. The computed temperature rise at lat 80° S could start rapid deglaciation of West Antarctica, leading to a 5 m rise in sea level.