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Over the past 50 years, humans have extracted the Earth’s groundwater stocks at a steep rate, largely to fuel global agro-economic development. Given society’s growing reliance on groundwater, we explore ‘peak water limits’ to investigate whether, when and where humanity might reach peak groundwater extraction. Using an integrated global model of the coupled human–Earth system, we simulate groundwater withdrawals across 235 water basins under 900 future scenarios of global change over the twenty-first century. Here we find that global non-renewable groundwater withdrawals exhibit a distinct peak-and-decline signature, comparable to historical observations of other depletable resources (for example, minerals), in nearly all (98%) scenarios, peaking on average at 625 km3 yr−1 around mid-century, followed by a decline through 2100. The peak and decline occur in about one-third (82) of basins, including 21 that may have already peaked, exposing about half (44%) of the global population to groundwater stress. Most

Global projections of macroeconomic climate-change damages typically consider impacts from average annual and national temperatures over long time horizons1–6. Here we use recent empirical findings from more than 1,600 regions worldwide over the past 40 years to project sub-national damages from temperature and precipitation, including daily variability and extremes7,8. Using an empirical approach that provides a robust lower bound on the persistence of impacts on economic growth, we find that the world economy is committed to an income reduction of 19% within the next 26 years independent of future emission choices (relative to a baseline without climate impacts, likely range of 11–29% accounting for physical climate and empirical uncertainty). These damages already outweigh the mitigation costs required to limit global warming to 2 °C by sixfold over this near-term time frame and thereafter diverge strongly dependent on emission choices. Committed damages arise predominantly through changes in average tempe

This report written by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Oliver Wyman, provides an in-depth economic analysis of how climate change will reshape health landscapes over the next two decades. It highlights increased risks from new pathogens, pollution and extreme weather events and shows how these will exacerbate current health inequities, disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable populations.

Evidence shows a continuing increase in the frequency and severity of global heatwaves1,2, raising concerns about the future impacts of climate change and the associated socioeconomic costs3,4. Here we develop a disaster footprint analytical framework by integrating climate, epidemiological and hybrid input–output and computable general equilibrium global trade models to estimate the midcentury socioeconomic impacts of heat stress. We consider health costs related to heat exposure, the value of heat-induced labour productivity loss and indirect losses due to economic disruptions cascading through supply chains. Here we show that the global annual incremental gross domestic product loss increases exponentially from 0.03 ± 0.01 (SSP 245)–0.05 ± 0.03 (SSP 585) percentage points during 2030–2040 to 0.05 ± 0.01–0.15 ± 0.04 percentage points during 2050–2060. By 2060, the expected global economic losses reach a total of 0.6–4.6% with losses attributed to health loss (37–45%), labour productivity loss (18–37%) and i

Belangrijkste les van het Wereld Economisch Forum? De klimaatproblematiek en het verlies aan natuur zijn een enorme bedreiging voor de bedrijfswereld. Heel wat CEO’s zijn zich daar intussen van bewust, maar de politiek moet nu het juiste kader scheppen, schrijft Julie Vandenberghe van WWF-België.

Catastrophic climate change and the collapse of human societies By Josep Peñuelas, Sandra Nogué National Science Review, Volume 10, Issue 6, June 2023 The scientific community has focused the agend…

Human activities are threatening to push the Earth system beyond its planetary boundaries, risking catastrophic and irreversible global environmental change. Action is urgently needed, yet well-intentioned policies designed to reduce pressure on a single boundary can lead, through economic linkages, to aggravation of other pressures. In particular, the potential policy spillovers from an increase in the global carbon price onto other critical Earth system processes has received little attention to date. To this end, we explore the global environmental effects of pricing carbon, beyond its effect on carbon emissions. We find that the case for carbon pricing globally becomes even stronger in a multi-boundary world, since it can ameliorate many other planetary pressures. It does however exacerbate certain planetary pressures, largely by stimulating additional biofuel production. When carbon pricing is allied with a biofuel policy, however, it can alleviate all planetary pressures. In the light of nine Earth Syst

Lancet study finds 'green growth' policies fall far short of what's needed to prevent dangerous change…

The CEO of one of Infosys' other major clients, Shell, also joined Rishi Sunak's new business council two weeks ago.

This paper catalogues current efforts to address climate change within multilateral economic and financial institutions and related organizations. It also proposes a minimum set of policy measures that need to be prioritized by such institutions to support climate change mitigation and adaptation. The proposals include expanding public climate finance via multilateral development banks, doing more to mobilize private investment, mainstreaming climate considerations across institutional operations, making climate disclosures mandatory, and addressing sovereign debt distress to unlock private climate finance.