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18 mei 2026
Current energy projections often envision an expansion of nuclear capacities to decarbonize future energy systems. However, this contrasts with the historic and current status of the nuclear industry, marked by techno-economic challenges for both light-water and non-light-water reactor technologies. Regardless, projections of strong nuclear growth have persisted since the 1970s. This paper investigates the “nuclear energy paradox” which shows the recurring divergence between historical projections and actual developments. A data compilation of long-term energy projections from international organizations such as the IAEA and the IEA as well as energy system models like GCAM and MESSAGE, as used in the IPCC, reveal a recurring pattern of high-growth projections for nuclear power. Such projections often rest on techno-economic assumptions such as substantial cost reductions. We propose the concept of nuclear imaginaries to show that these assumptions are embedded into techno-economic visions of nuclear power de
Climate Action Tracker
16 mei 2026
Investment firms have put over $100 million into developing risky technologies that could cool the planet with unknown side effects.
Exclusive: Commission says alert would trigger coordinated international response that could help avoid millions dying. The climate crisis should be declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organization, or millions more people will die unnecessarily, leading international experts have said. The independent pan-European commission on climate and health, which was convened by the WHO, concluded the climate crisis was such a worldwide threat to health that the WHO should declare it “a public health emergency of international concern” (Pheic).
10 mei 2026
Norway’s energy minister says country has a ‘responsibility’ to address shortfalls caused by wars in Ukraine and Middle East
07 mei 2026
We work to ensure that carbon pricing and other climate policies cut pollution and drive a just transition towards zero-carbon societies.
05 mei 2026
We infer that 2026 is likely to be the warmest year in the period of instrumental data, based on a physics-based approach with identifiable assumptions. This approach may help us learn something in 2026 about the mechanisms of climate change. The figures in this post and our other current papers will be continually updated on our website,2 when they remain relevant. We are also now on Substack3.
Periodically posting commentary on climate science and policy.
04 mei 2026
The process of relocating people from New Orleans should start immediately, as the city has reached a “point of no return” that will see it surrounded by the ocean within decades due to the climate crisis, a stark new study has concluded. Ongoing sea-level rise and the rampant erosion of wetlands in southern Louisiana will swallow up the New Orleans area within a few generations, with the new paper estimating the city “may well be surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico before the end of this century”.
30 april 2026
Dr. Hansen periodically posts commentary on his recent papers and presentations and on other topics of interest to an e-mail list. To receive announcements of new postings, please click here.
29 april 2026
We must confront two stark realities about the end of our era. First, the collapse of our industrial civilization is already underway, manifesting as a slow, agonizing process of structural decay, economic exhaustion, and ecological overshoot. Second, this descent is terminal. We have permanently exhausted the physical prerequisites for any future technological reboot.
23 april 2026
A Letter to the Newly Awake. I know exactly where you are sitting right now. You are staring at a chart of North Atlantic sea surface temperatures, watching a red line spike into uncharted, terrifying territory. Yet another horrible data point proving what you already know. You feel a familiar, hollow drop in your stomach as you register the biophysical reality: the planet’s systems are unraveling.
21 april 2026
There is reason to expect that global temperatures will continue to increase over the remainder of the year, as a strong El Niño event is expected
19 april 2026
Environment News: UNITED NATIONS: Vanuatu will renew its climate justice fight at the United Nations General Assembly with a draft resolution that was watered down afte.
18 april 2026
Climate models show considerable discrepancies in their future projections around the Atlantic, mainly due to uncertainties in the fate of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Climate models suggest a reduction in AMOC strength of 32 ± 37% by 2100 (90% probability, Shared Socioeconomic Pathways 2-4.5 scenario, Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6). To refine this estimate and reduce its uncertainty, we use four different observational constraint methods. The best one, which provides the lowest leave-one-out error, integrates a large set of observable variables using ridge-regularized linear regression—a method unusual in climate science. It gives an estimate of the AMOC slowdown of 51 ± 8% (90% probability), i.e., a weakening ∼ 60% stronger than suggested by the multimodel mean. This refinement mainly results from correcting a bias in South Atlantic surface salinity, consistent with recent studies emphasizing its role in the proximity to an AMOC tipping point. This more substantial
Even if global warming does not exceed two degrees, it could lead to more serious consequences than expected. This is the conclusion of a new study published in Nature.
17 april 2026
Wildfires used to die down and even stop at night with cooler temperatures and increased humidity. But a study released Friday says climate change is making burning weather more around the clock in North America because night is becoming warmer and drier. Canadian fire scientists say potential burning hours for fires have increased 36% in the last 50 years. California now has about 550 more fire-friendly hours a year than it did in the 1970s. North American summer nights are warming faster than days, evening relief is evaporating for forests and that means the area of land burned is soaring.
Beneath the surface of the Pacific, a massive pool of heat is preparing to reshape global weather patterns. Time is running out to prepare for a climate shock of unprecedented scale. As 2026 unfolds, the Pacific Ocean is priming a catastrophic El Niño that threatens to cripple global food systems, trigger widespread economic instability, and shatter planetary temperature records.
15 april 2026
The European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) earlier this year issued a forecast of a strong (“Super”) El Nino to begin later this year and peak in early 2027, as we have discussed in two earlier posts.3,4 El Ninos are important because of the large effects that they have on global weather, even though those effects are not always consistent from one El Nino to another. El Ninos have even greater effect in combination with ongoing global warming, e.g., Radfar et al.5 find that the combination of an El Nino with increasingly prevalent marine heat waves results in tropical cyclones consistently producing higher maximum wind speeds, storm surges, and precipitation rates, and Liu et al.6 describe evidence of El Ninos strengthened control over global climate anomalies in a warmer world
The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the biggest slowdown are the most realistic. Scientists called the new finding “very concerning” as a collapse would have catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa and the Americas.
14 april 2026
According to the Associated Press, the Trump administration last week proposed a set of rollbacks that would decimate the country’s waterways. Legally, Trump can’t just undo the Biden-era rules on a whim. Instead, his EPA has started work on a convoluted workaround, which includes state-level enforcement delays and revisions to the original regulations.
12 april 2026
Thawing permafrost may release greenhouse gases much faster than previously expected, potentially accelerating climate change even further. Experiments conducted by researchers at the University of Leeds, and published in the AGU journal Earth’s Future, show that when permafrost thaws, it becomes 25 to 100 times more permeable. This change allows significantly greater amounts of climate-forcing gases to escape into the atmosphere.
The Earth is already operating beyond its capacity to sustainably support the global population, according to new research highlighting growing strain on food systems, climate stability, and human well-being. Despite this, researchers say that slowing population growth and increasing global awareness could still help reduce long-term risks.
11 april 2026
Analysis of six extreme heatwaves found when temperature and humidity were accounted for, all were potentially deadly for older people
09 april 2026
Millions of Pages of Previously Classified Documents on Industrial Poisons (and Counting)
Around 153 BCE, Cato the Elder, one of Rome’s most prominent senators, began ending every single one of his speeches with the same words: “Carthago delenda est”, or “Carthage must be destroyed”.
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.
07 april 2026
Scenarios serve as a critical tool in climate change analysis, enabling the exploration of future evolution of the climate system, climate impacts, and the human system (including mitigation and adaptation actions). This paper describes the scenario framework for ScenarioMIP as part of CMIP7. The design process has involved various rounds of interaction with the research community and user groups at large. The proposal covers a set of scenarios exploring high levels of climate change (to explore high-end climate risks), medium levels of climate change (anchored to current policy), and low levels of climate change (aligned with current international agreements). These scenarios follow very different trajectories in terms of emissions, with some likely to experience peaks and subsequent declines in greenhouse gas concentrations in this century. An important innovation is that most scenarios are intended to be run, if possible, in emission-driven mode, providing a better representation of the Earth system uncert
06 april 2026
In a Swiss forest lab, scientists tracked how beech and oak leaves cool themselves and pinpointed the moment heat and drought push them past their limits.
03 april 2026
The world has become well versed in the importance of the strait of Hormuz to the world’s energy flows, but attention is increasingly turning to its vital role in another market – the fertiliser on which harvests depend. A third of the global trade in raw materials for fertiliser passes through the maritime choke point, which is also the route for 20% of shipments of natural gas, which is required to make it.
01 april 2026
Together with the Center for International Environmental Law, we expose the scientific deception by chemicals industry which is delaying or derailing regulation to protect health and the environment.
31 maart 2026
Oil prices could jump to $200 per barrel and even higher if the Strait of Hormuz remains near-closed as it is at the moment, Fereidun Fesharaki, Chairman Emeritus of energy consultancy FGE NexantECA, told Bloomberg on Tuesday. Although the oil market is moving on sentiment and U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media posts about the war, the fact is that “every week, 100 million barrels of oil is not going through, and every month, 400 million barrels are not going through,” Fesharaki told Bloomberg Television.
Researchers in Japan have developed a new material that allows solar cells to generate an amount of energy from sunlight that was previously thought impossible. The discovery, made by a team at Kyushu University, involves a special “spin-flip” emitter that can harvest energy from the Sun that is typically lost as heat. The breakthrough overcomes the long-standing limit of conventional solar cells to achieve an energy conversion efficiency of 130 per cent – opening up new possibilities for ultra-efficient solar panels.
30 maart 2026
We can’t know how long the war in the Middle East will last. Nor can we know who will “win” it, and in which terms. What we know is that the destruction already wreaked on things and people is immense, and it keeps escalating. The longer the war, the bleaker their perspectives in a region already plagued by all sorts of problems, including drought, soil degradation, ecosystem damage, scarce agricultural resources, declining fertility rates, and more.
28 maart 2026
Anti-authoritarian rallies, taking place in all 50 states plus 16 countries, are expected to be biggest in US history
Thousands of rallies are expected across the U.S. on Saturday as part of the latest “No Kings” protest against the policies of President Donald Trump and his administration. Organizers said more than 3,200 events are planned in all 50 states for what they hope could be the largest single-day nonviolent protest in U.S. history. The two previous No Kings events attracted millions of participants.
25 maart 2026
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
À Kolwezi, dans le sud-est de la RDC, la découverte de minerais radioactifs sur le remblai T17, exploité artisanalement, a déclenché une urgence radiologique.
The fragility of the global food system fills me with dread – and the war with Iran has exposed just how close to collapse it is
Wael Sawan warns of pressure on diesel and petrol if strait of Hormuz does not reopen to oil and gas shipping
24 maart 2026
When James Prescott Joule lent his name to a unit of energy, he could not have foreseen today’s alarming calculations
20 maart 2026
Models are converging on prediction of an El Nino beginning this year, peaking in early 2027. After overlooking the possibility of an El Nino this year, some reporting is jumping on a “Super El Nino” bandwagon. El Nino strength and frequency are important, especially the issue of whether these are modified by global warming. However, the more important knowledge that needs to be extracted from near-term global warming concerns interpretation of ongoing, extraordinary, acceleration of ocean surface warming. Impacts of this ocean warming include a factor of two greater warming over land, increased extreme precipitation, and poleward movement of subtropical conditions.
19 maart 2026
"Extreme heatwaves like the one impacting the Western US this month are one of the catastrophic disasters these companies predicted their conduct would bring about," said Public Citizen.
Le philosophe de l'environnement Rupert Read dit à Ella Whelan la panéliste Moral Maze pourquoi nous ne pourrons peut-être plus profiter du même niveau de vie pour le bien de la planète et des générations futures.
Oil has empowered capitalism, and some of the world’s most exploitative regimes. Move away from it and we can solve some of the key issues we face
14 maart 2026
As climate change accelerates, its effects are being felt in every corner of the world. A comprehensive global index developed by researchers at the University of Notre Dame has assessed the climate vulnerability and adaptive readiness of nearly 200 countries, revealing stark and troubling disparities between the world’s wealthiest and most impoverished nations.
12 maart 2026
Industry’s spin and privileged access to the highest levels of the Commission, alongside the current EU hostility to new green rules and mania for deregulation, appear to have fatally undermined a key European Green Deal ambition.
11 maart 2026
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.
08 maart 2026
Critics say brash, bombastic Fox News host out of his depth to guide US military through murky new Middle East conflict
Residents report terror of smoke-filled city, from potentially toxic rain, air and water to food scarcity and difficulty of escape
The US was an oligarchy well before Trump’s first term. Recognizing this reality is essential to building a true democracy
06 maart 2026
Seven Ukrainians arrested and money-laundering investigation launched in latest spat between Kyiv and Budapest
Researchers identify sharp rise to about 0.35C every decade, after excluding natural fluctuations such as El Niño
04 maart 2026
Trump has launched an unprecedented assault on the environment. Where’s the pushback?
Fears US-Israeli onslaught could lead regime to push for bomb or embolden other groups to steal uranium stockpile
03 maart 2026
Olivier De Schutter says new economic agenda needed to tackle crises of rising inequality and ecological collapse
El Niño could fuel extreme weather and raise temperatures to record highs this year, but how sure can we be that it will return?
02 maart 2026
Depleting THAAD and Patriot interceptor inventories threaten US extended deterrence, Gulf energy security, and the regional power balance amid sustained Iranian ballistic missile and drone assaults.
27 februari 2026
In one of the most comprehensive empirical studies to date of AI strategic reasoning, Professor Kenneth Payne of King’s College London examined how large language models navigate simulated nuclear crises. Across 21 scenarios, the models displayed sophisticated escalation logic consistent with classical strategic theory – yet nuclear signalling occurred in 95% of games and no model ever chose outright concession. The findings challenge assumptions about AI restraint and offer new tools for defence analysis.
26 februari 2026
There is mounting experimental evidence that lifetime exposure to increasing atmospheric CO2 levels can negatively impact the normal physiology of organisms. Directly assessing this in humans is very difficult. We analysed serum bicarbonate (HCO3−), calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) from 1999 to 2020 as indirect proxies for atmospheric CO2 exposure. Over this period, average bicarbonate levels in this population show an increasing trend which parallels rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Both. If these trends continue, blood bicarbonate values could be at the limit of the accepted healthy range in half a century, and Ca and P will be at the limit of their healthy ranges by the end of this century. This has the potential to cause a range of adverse health effects.
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.
23 februari 2026
A recent UK national security assessment on biodiversity and ecosystem collapse made headlines, not for its dire warnings, but for its omissions. It's part of a larger trend of governments keeping climate security reports from the public.
21 februari 2026
Even as weather extremes worsen, the voices calling for the rolling back of environmental rules have grown louder and more influential
20 februari 2026
The new joint policy brief offers a deep dive into the ways in which the social and solidarity economy can advance the objectives of the Roadmap by supporting the eradication of poverty beyond growth.
19 februari 2026
Science-based policies could successfully limit human-caused climate change, but when political parties are allowed to accept money from special interests, policies are distorted to the point of being ineffective. This is a solvable problem, but to clarify the situation and the needed actions, we need to first marshal the evidence. The draft Prologue of Sophie’s Planet is intended to help coherently organize the evidence. Here is Part III of V, with the final two paragraphs of Part II.
18 februari 2026
Extinction Rebellion says some members have been visited by agents claiming to be FBI amid Trump’s threats toward liberal groups
17 februari 2026
Welcome to the Global Climate Highlights 2025 report, compiled by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). The Global Climate Highlights 2025 report provides authoritative climate data and concise insight on a global scale about 2025's climate conditions, covering surface and sea surface temperature, heat stress, sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic, among others.
16 februari 2026
Harmful chemicals in babies’ pacifiers. ‘Forever chemicals’ / PFAS in dental floss. Known carcinogens in lipstick lids. These are just three examples of toxic chemicals in everyday products that reveal how the EU’s flagship chemicals policy, REACH, is not delivering for citizens.
14 februari 2026
As reported by the Guardian, scientists just published a warning that Earth is approaching a point of no return. A new study in the journal One Earth shows multiple climate systems — the Greenland ice sheet, the West Antarctic ice sheet, boreal permafrost, the Amazon rainforest — are all much closer to collapse than previously thought. “Research shows that several Earth system components may be closer to destabilising than once believed,” the researchers urged. “While the exact risk is uncertain, it is clear that current climate commitments are insufficient.”
13 februari 2026
A critical step on the path towards climate neutrality, the European Union’s 2040 target calls for a 90-per-cent reduction in emissions. Yet as far-reaching as this goal may seem, its provisions constitute a weakening of Europe’s climate ambitions under the Green Deal. By allowing costly and ineffective CO2 removal and storage technologies as a way of lowering emissions, the target risks deterring direct emission cuts and outsourcing pollution.
US President Donald Trump has announced the reversal of the so-called endangerment finding, a key Obama-era scientific ruling that underpins much of US environmental legislation. As a result of this, experts are predicting various environmental and economic impacts, though the decision by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to be challenged in the courts from environmental groups.
12 februari 2026
Doyne Farmer says a super-simulator of the global economy would accelerate the transition to a green, clean world
China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.
11 februari 2026
Continued global heating could set irreversible course by triggering climate tipping points, but most people unaware
09 februari 2026
Today, we are close to the critical moment when conventional economic growth becomes impossible on a finite planet, constrained by two parallel factors: resource depletion and pollution. Tthe depletion of fossil fuels and other mineral commodities is placing heavy constraints on both industrial and agricultural production. We are not running out of anything yet, but the cost of extraction is increasing, just as the damage that extraction causes to the ecosystem. On the other side, pollution is appearing in more than one form. Chemical pollution is growing in terms of heavy metals, endocrine-disruptors, and other poisoning substances, while climate change can be seen as another form of pollution generated by the excess of CO2 in the atmosphere.
08 februari 2026
I know it’s almost impossible to turn your eyes away from the Trump show, but that’s the point. His antics, ever-grosser and more preposterous, are designed to keep him in our minds, to crowd out other issues. His insatiable craving for attention is a global-threat multiplier. You can’t help wondering whether there’s anything he wouldn’t do to dominate the headlines.
In Belem, Brazil’s leader, President Lula da Silva, opened the talks by denouncing obstructionists who “reject scientific evidence and attack institutions.” “They manipulate algorithms, sow hatred and spread fear,” he said, describing a surge in disinformation and propaganda aimed at blocking action to slow climate change. The summit, for the first time, put the issue on the agenda. A coalition of countries and international agencies issued a separate “Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change,” calling on governments to address climate disinformation, promote transparency and protect journalists, scientists and environmentalists.
By the end of this century, parts of Africa could face heatwaves for 250-300 days a year, which will make it difficult for people to survive.
07 februari 2026
Climate change is making it challenging to identify future host cities.
06 februari 2026
The world seems headed into another El Nino, just 3 years after the last one. Such quick return normally would imply, at most, an El Nino of moderate strength, but we suggest that even a moderately strong El Nino may yield record global temperature already in 2026 and still greater temperature in 2027. The extreme warming will be a result mainly of high climate sensitivity and a recent increase of the net global climate forcing, not the result of an exceptional El Nino, per se. We find that the principal drive for global warming acceleration began in about 2015, which implies that 2°C global warming is likely to be reached in the 2030s, not at midcentury.
The world seems headed into another El Nino, just 3 years after the last one. Such quick return normally would imply, at most, an El Nino of moderate strength, but we suggest that even a moderately strong El Nino may yield record global temperature already in 2026 and still greater temperature in 2027. The extreme warming will be a result mainly of high climate sensitivity and a recent increase of the net global climate forcing, not the result of an exceptional El Nino, per se. We find that the principal drive for global warming acceleration began in about 2015, which implies that 2°C global warming is likely to be reached in the 2030s, not at midcentury.
05 februari 2026
When a series of power outages hit Europe last year, the finger of blame was quickly – and falsely – pointed to an unlikely source: renewables. Blackouts are being used as a political tool to oppose the energy transition. But they can also become an opportunity for open discussions about energy infrastructure – a topic too often reserved only for technical audiences.
States and financial bodies using modelling that ignores shocks from extreme weather and climate tipping points
02 februari 2026
The first session of the Plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution (ISP-CWP P1) will be hosted by the Government of Switzerland, from 2 to 6 February 2026 at the Geneva International Conference Centre (CICG). The session will be preceded by regional and stakeholder meetings on 1 February 2026, at the same venue. The tentative schedule for the first session is available here. Please note that this schedule is subject to change.
As global soy giants walk away from a landmark pact, land grabbers move in to clear the forest for new crops.
30 januari 2026
Exclusive: Ben Goldsmith will work on issues including fishing and green belt preservation to attract green Tories
l'observatoire US de la dérégulation environnementale
The Senate is on the verge of taking up a bill with the Orwellian title “Fix Our Forests Act.” It is designed to do the opposite, as Dan Galpern and I describe in an op-ed published yesterday in the Boston Globe, which is copied below with permission of the Globe. The bill would result in swaths of the public’s national forests becoming “categorical exclusion” zones open to logging exempt from any environmental review. Thus, the bill would override the purposes for which national forests were set up, including “outdoor recreation, range…watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes.” This sin is rationalized under the pretense that the Act will reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health by “thinning” the forest. This is nonsense, as our op-ed discusses.
28 januari 2026
Climate change could lead to half a million more deaths from malaria in Africa over the next 25 years, according to new research.
With warming set to pass the critical 1.5-degree limit, scientists are warning that the world is on course to trigger tipping points that would lead to cascading consequences — from the melting of ice sheets to the death of the Amazon rainforest — that could not be reversed.
New year, new acronym! The newly established Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution (ISP-CWP) will meet in its first Plenary session from February 2-6 in Geneva, Switzerland. The Panel is designed to provide scientific assessments on chemicals, waste, and pollution to inform policymakers at national, regional, and international levels.
27 januari 2026
Dario Amodei questions if human systems are ready to handle the ‘almost unimaginable power’ that is ‘potentially imminent’
Testimony from medics, morgue and graveyard staff reveals huge state effort to conceal systematic killing of protesters
26 januari 2026
The world endured its costliest wildfire on record in 2025, its sixth-deadliest heat wave, and four floods or storms that caused at least 1,000 deaths.
The authors of a new book argue that the ocean cannot be saved by legislation alone. Paul Watson is one of the authors, along with academic Sarah Levy. Watson was an early member of Greenpeace, and founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, but is no longer linked to either organization. While he maintains he has never caused physical injury to anyone, he promotes "aggressive non-violent" direct action, and is currently wanted by the Japanese state.
The world has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy” that is harming billions of people, a UN report has declared. The overuse and pollution of water must be tackled urgently, the report’s lead author said, because no one knew when the whole system could collapse, with implications for peace and social cohesion. All life depends on water but the report found many societies had long been using water faster than it could be replenished annually in rivers and soils, as well as over-exploiting or destroying long-term stores of water in aquifers and wetlands.
Scientists expect 41% of the projected global population to face the extremes, with ‘no part of the world’ immune
23 januari 2026
Children’s developing lungs make them vulnerable to air pollution.
What if the real danger wasn’t the crises ahead… but the established illusion that we can solve them without changing the system that produces said crises? In this uncompromising and deeply eye-opening talk, renowned systems thinker and strategist Arthur Keller challenges one of the most comforting ideas of our time: the belief that “solutions exist” to the great planetary predicaments of our time. Climate action, energy transition, technical innovation… are all crucial, yet they’re somewhat off topic if they remain integrated within a system that inexorably turns nature into waste. Arthur reframes the situation with brutal clarity. Humanity is not facing an ecological crisis: it is nature that’s facing a human crisis. The problematic is no collection of isolated problems to tackle one by one: it is rather the symptom of a civilization operating beyond planetary limits. Decarbonizing energy without transforming the underlying system, he argues, is like treating cancer with painkillers. The disease keeps sprea
21 januari 2026
Breathing in air pollution like ozone and PM2.5 harms nearly every major system in the human body
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.
20 januari 2026
Ecosystem destruction will increase food shortages, disorder and mass migration, with effects already being felt
Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security - A national security assessment
Like living beyond your financial means, using more water than nature can replenish can have catastrophic results.
Flagship report calls for fundamental reset of global water agenda as irreversible damage pushes many basins beyond recovery
As climate and geopolitics shocks bite, countries are rebuilding food buffers. The UK clings to neoliberal ideas while households pay the price
19 januari 2026
“Water crisis” has become the default label for almost any episode of water stress, from short-lived droughts to decades-long overuse of rivers and aquifers. Yet in many regions of the world, water problems no longer resemble a crisis in the conventional sense. They represent a post-crisis failure state in which human–water systems have exceeded their hydrological carrying capacities, and societies have spent beyond their sustainable hydrological budgets for so long that critical water assets are depleted, some ecosystem damages are irreversible on human time scales, and a return to “normal” is infeasible even with prohibitive economic, social, and environmental costs.
18 januari 2026
US demand to own Greenland leaves little scope for compromise, and forcing the issue would entail end of Nato Greenland, with a population of fewer than 57,000, might not seem to be the territory on which the future of the relationship between Europe and the US, the viability of Nato as the world’s most successful defence alliance, or even the fractured relations between the UK and Europe would be determined. But battlefields are sometimes the product of chance, rather than choice. It now feels as if Donald Trump’s threat to impose 10% tariffs on eight fellow Nato states for sending troops last week to support Greenland’s sovereignty may be one of those clarifying moments in which Europe had no option. Successive European leaders condemned Trump’s blackmail and intimidation on Sunday and they sounded as if they meant it.
17 januari 2026
Progress of artificial general intelligence could stall, which may lead to a financial crash, says Yoshua Bengio, one of the ‘godfathers’ of modern AI
Melting glaciers, coastal areas wiped off the map and regular 40C heat in Europe. Climate experts warn the gloomy predictions of long term environmental change are no longer the future - they are already here. Last year was the third hottest on record, with the World Meteorological Organization this week warning that 2025 continued a run of “extraordinary” global temperatures. The EU has said the Paris climate agreement of 1.5C could be broken before 2030, a decade sooner than expected.
15 januari 2026
Satellite analysis warns that widespread land subsidence threatens 1.6 billion people by 2040, with 86% of the at-risk population concentrated in Asia
14 januari 2026
The world's oceans absorbed a record amount of heat in 2025, an international team of scientists said Friday, further priming conditions for sea level rise, violent storms, and coral death.
We are living in a time of polycrisis. If you feel trapped – you’re not alone. I hadn’t fully grasped how the idea of a better future sustained me – now I, like many others, find it difficult to be productive
13 januari 2026
Bronwen Maddox says Trump’s rejection of international law leaves UK and Europe facing huge dilemma
10 januari 2026
A new international analysis published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences on 9 January finds that the Earth's ocean stored more heat in 2025 than in any year since modern measurements began. The finding is the result of a major international collaboration led by the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, involving more than 50 scientists from 31 research institutions worldwide. The 2025 heat increase was 23 Zetta Joules (23,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules of energy), which is equivalent to ~37 years of global primary energy consumption at the 2023 level (~620 Exa Joules per year). The assessment combines data from major international data centers and independent research groups, including three observational products (Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Copernicus Marine; and NOAA/NCEI) and an ocean reanalysis (CIGAR-RT) from three continents: Asia, Europe, and America. These groups confirm that the 2025 ocean heat content (OHC) reached the h
08 januari 2026
Data group forecasts deficit of 10mn tonnes by 2040, equivalent to nearly one-third of current global demand
05 januari 2026
It has the world's largest reserves, produces comparatively little, and has a type of oil that the US needs. […] Over the weekend, the United States bombed Venezuela, and captured its president Nicolás Maduro. There has been a lot of speculation about the legality, true motive and implications going forward. Oil has been a central part of the discussion. I wanted to get a quick overview of what the global picture looks like. So here are five(ish) simple charts that give some context on the history of oil in Venezuela, and why the United States — which is, by far, the world’s largest producer itself — would care so much.
03 januari 2026
Trump is no longer bending the rules – he is demolishing them, with consequences far beyond Caracas
31 december 2025
Legal action has brought important decisions, from the scrapping of fossil fuel plants to revised climate plans
26 december 2025
The datasets used to diagnose the modern history of the planet’s climate — and to proclaim that the world is now very near to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming — typically begin with the year 1850. The new one goes all the way back to 1781. This extended time frame matters because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increased 2.5 percent between 1750 and 1850, enough to have caused some warming that the data hasn’t accounted for.
23 december 2025
The activist and author of Here Comes the Sun discusses rapid advances in solar and wind power and how the US ceded leadership in the sector to its main rival
This year, ExxonKnews reported on Big Oil targeting its critics, pushing false solutions, and encouraging political allies to help the industry escape accountability.
21 december 2025
From floods to droughts, erratic weather patterns are affecting food security, with crop yields projected to fall if changes are not made
Study author says tech companies are reaping benefits of artificial intelligence age but society is left to pay cost
19 december 2025
Global temperature in 2025 declined 0.1°C from its El Nino-spurred maximum in 2024, making 2025 the second warmest year. The 2023-2025 mean is +1.5°C relative to 1880-1920. The 12-month running-mean temperature should decline for the next few months, reaching a minimum about +1.4°C. Later in 2026, we expect the 12-month running-mean temperature to begin to rise, as dynamical models show development of an El Nino. We project a global temperature record of +1.7°C in 2027, which will provide further confirmation of the recent global warming acceleration.
Pour convaincre les électeurs de droite et du centre d’agir pour protéger la planète, élus et ONG essaient d’adapter le message.
13 december 2025
Perception, pattern-seeking, and the role of neurodivergence in a failing civilisation
12 december 2025
Much of today's sustainability discourse emphasizes efficiency, clean technologies, and smart systems, but largely underestimates fundamental physical constraints relating to energy-matter interactions. These constraints stem from the fact that Earth is a materially closed yet energetically open system, driven by the sustained but low power-density flux of solar radiation. This Perspective reframes sustainability within these axiomatic limits, integrating relevant timescales and orders of magnitude. We argue that fossil-fueled industrial metabolism is inherently incompatible with long-term viability, while post-fossil systems are surface-, materials-, and power-intensive. Long-term sustainability must therefore be defined not only by how much energy or material is used, but also by how it is used: favoring organic, carbon-based chemistry with limited reliance on purified metals, operating at low power density, and maintaining low throughput rates. Achieving this requires radical technological shifts toward l
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.
11 december 2025
Glacial earthquakes are a special type of earthquake generated in cold, icy regions. First discovered in the northern hemisphere more than 20 years ago, these quakes occur when huge chunks of ice fall from glaciers into the sea. Until now, only a very few have been found in the Antarctic. In a new study soon to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, I present evidence for hundreds of these quakes in Antarctica between 2010 and 2023, mostly at the ocean end of the Thwaites Glacier – the so-called Doomsday Glacier that could send sea levels rising rapidly if it were to collapse.
Neonicotinoid insecticides are a major driver of pollinator decline. Due to their persistence and mobility in soil, they can contaminate non-target vegetation through runoff or dust, reaching pollinator resources. However, predicting soil contamination is challenging, especially where pesticide use data is lacking. This study assessed the potential of using proxies such as cropping history and landscape structure to predict neonicotinoid content in soils. We analyzed seven neonicotinoids in 86 sites in agricultural landscapes of Belgium.
10 december 2025
World Inequality Report 2026
Data from World Inequality Report also showed top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90%
09 december 2025
The Global Environment Outlook, Seventh Edition: A Future We Choose, the product of 287 multi-disciplinary scientists from 82 countries, is the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the global environment ever carried out.
UN GEO report says ending this harm key to global transformation required ‘before collapse becomes inevitable’
08 december 2025
The global collapse arrives piecemeal. Germany is going first.
07 december 2025
Short-Term Energy Outlook
03 december 2025
Cutting-edge materials and thoughtful urban planning can help cities beat the negative heating effects of climate change.
30 november 2025
Around 56 million years ago, Earth suddenly got much hotter. Over about 5,000 years, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere drastically increased and global temperatures shot up by some 6°C.
29 november 2025
Exclusive: UCL scientists find large swathes of southern Europe are drying up, with ‘far-reaching’ implications
28 november 2025
I always say that models are not predictions; they are qualitative illustrations of what the future could be. But as the future gets closer to the present, models can start being seen as predictive tools. It is the weather/climate dichotomy, so aptly exploited to confuse matters by politically minded people in the discussion about climate. Right now, we are getting close to the point that we could forecast a collapse in the same way as we can forecast the trajectory of a tropical storm. So, you remember how “The Limits to Growth” generated a long term forecast in 1972. Here it is
Logging and mining are destroying swathes of the Congo rainforest, with the result that African forests went from being a carbon sink to a carbon source in 2010 to 2017
27 november 2025
Budgets are now climate policy. But mainstream media hasn’t caught up.
26 november 2025
Doomscrolling, an addictive habit, can be destructive if not managed – the way an alcoholic, say, manages drinking herself to death. It must be done with care, with binges considered for the long haul. “Overindulging…may be detrimental to your mental health,” warns the doomscrolling subreddit r/Collapse. “Anxiety and depression are common reactions when studying collapse…If you are considering suicide….” (If you are considering suicide: this may end up one of the mantras of the era of modern civilizational crack-up.)
25 november 2025
Rights-based, post-growth policies that make poverty eradication a deliberate outcome of restructured economies — not a trickle-down side effect of destructive growth.
22 november 2025
The reality of coming to terms with the end of industrial civilisation
A deal is welcome after talks nearly collapsed but the final agreement contains small steps rather than leaps
Delegates made minimal headway on timetable for replacing oil and gas or on firm commitments to reducing carbon emissions
The Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with approvals for pesticides containing “forever chemicals” as an active ingredient, dismissing concerns about health and environmental impacts raised by some scientists and activists. This month, the agency approved two new pesticides that meet the internationally recognized definition for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or fluorinated substances, and has announced plans for four additional approvals.
21 november 2025
Rain-fed agriculture, the backbone of rural livelihoods, are no longer predictable as droughts follows floods.
The growth rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) climate forcing increased rapidly in the last 15 years to about 0.5 W/m2 per decade, as shown by the “colorful chart” for GHG climate forcing that we have been publishing for 25 years (Fig. 1).[1] The chart is not in IPCC reports, perhaps because it reveals inconvenient facts. Although growth of GHG climate forcing declined rapidly after the 1987 Montreal Protocol, other opportunities to decrease climate forcing were missed. If policymakers do not appreciate the significance of present data on changing climate forcings, we scientists must share the blame.
18 november 2025
The UK has announced much harsher rules for asylum seekers including the prospect of more deportations for those whose applications fail. The US is trebling the size of its deportation force. The EU is doubling its border budgets. And in the coming decades, hundreds of millions of people might be displaced by ecological changes.
14 november 2025
87%. That’s how much the emissions of NVIDIA (worth 5 trillion dollars) increased in 2024, as an article from TruthDig is one of the only sources in the world to point out. This means it became the world’s most valuable company by answering soaring demand for AI… whilst doubling its carbon footprint. Not to mention water: Samsung’s next ‘mega-cluster’ of GPU fabs will consume half of Seoul’s water, says the same article.
12 november 2025
Watchdog’s flagship report says rise in low-carbon electricity will make transition ‘inevitable’, despite Trump’s calls to carry on drilling
Exclusive interview with ex-US vice-president at Cop30 also reveals his hope around much-maligned climate summit
The International Energy Agency works with countries around the world to shape energy policies for a secure and sustainable future.
World Energy Outlook 2025 - Event listed by the International Energy Agency
09 november 2025
Decision by international court of justice hailed as a gamechanger for climate justice and accountability
08 november 2025
Money talks – and his essay denouncing ‘near-term emissions goals’ at Cop30 mostly argues the case for letting the ultra-rich off the hook
06 november 2025
Gates recently called for a ‘strategic pivot’ in climate strategy. That appears to have hit a nerve.
31 oktober 2025
“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Thus wrote the famous psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1966.
29 oktober 2025
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.
22 of the planet’s 34 vital signs are at record levels, with many of them continuing to trend sharply in the wrong direction. This is the message of the sixth issue of the annual “State of the climate” report. The report was prepared by an international coalition with contribution from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and led by Oregon State University scientists. Published today in BioScience, it cites global data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in proposing “high-impact” strategies.
28 oktober 2025
Exclusive: ‘Devastating consequences’ now inevitable but emissions cuts still vital, says António Guterres in sole interview before Cop30
26 oktober 2025
Luke is a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and has spent the past five years studying the collapse of civilisations throughout history. He joins me to explain his research, detailing the difference between complex, collective civilisations and what he calls “Goliaths”, massive centralising forces by which a small group of individuals extract wealth from the rest through domination and the threat of violence. Today, he says, we live in a global Goliath. In this astounding conversation, Luke takes us from the Ancient times to the modern day, revealing the root causes of collapse and paralleling them what we’re living through today. He explains the egalitarian nature of our species, and shines new light on what a future could look like free from today’s global Goliath. He reminds us all that we tend to view collapse through the eyes of the 1%, those who have the most to lose, and gives startling accounts of how populations bounced back after thei
For the first 300,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian civilizations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change.
Dr Luke Kemp is a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge. He has a PhD in international relations from the ANU and previous experience as a senior economist at Vivid Economics. This episode explores catastrophic and extinction risk, why the topic is understudied, and how we can weigh out the catastrophic risks of climate change and solar geo-engineering.
Today, Nate is joined by Luke Kemp, a researcher whose work is focused on existential risks (or X-risks), which encompass threats of human extinction, societal collapse, and dystopian futures. How can we begin to understand the likelihood and gravity of these ruinous events, and what kinds of responses from people and governments could further undermine social cohesion and resilience? What roles do human biases, hierarchical power structures, and the development of technologies, like artificial intelligence and geoengineering, play in X-risks? How can we collaborate across industries to protect our modern systems through effective risk management strategies? And in what ways do our institutions need to become more inclusive to better democratize decision-making processes, leading to safer futures for humanity?
“We’re losing 120 calories per person, per day, for every degree of global warming.” That stark data point from a 2025 Nature study signals more than a threat to food security, it points to a growing risk to global financial security. Food system instability exposes markets to cascading shocks: inflation, trade disruption, insurance losses and sovereign credit stress. Yet these risks remain largely unaccounted for in core financial systems.
24 oktober 2025
James Hansen - Climate Reckoning in ATLAS25, Operaatio Arktis, Helsinki, Finland
We already have plenty of evidence of what happens when things better left to governments — which in this case might decide to never flip the switch at all — are ceded to private industry.
23 oktober 2025
Sentient Media reveals less than 4% of climate news stories mention animal agriculture as source of carbon emissions
21 oktober 2025
A “pushing and triggering” mechanism has has driven the Arctic climate system to a new state, which will likely see consistently increased frequency and intensity of extreme events across the atmosphere, ocean and cryosphere this century.
In a selective history of the evolution of the degrowth movement, his chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Degrowth (2025) offers a collective and subjective reflection revealing tensions between academics, practitioners and activists. Its four co-authors have lived in and with these tensions, analysing practical experiences in the degrowth cooperative Cargonomia (Budapest, Hungary) and the low-tech ecosystem Can Decreix (Cerbère, France). The chapter aims to launch a formal, respectful and significant dialogue between degrowth academics and practitioners. How did an initial public perception of degrowth as activists who experiment-by-doing based in a radical epistemological critique of traditional academia evolve more and more into an academia-dominated movement? We reflect on the movement’s organisation to suggest how deeper collaborative relationships between researchers, activism and practitioners might strengthen degrowth as an academic field, enhance the credibility and robustness of grounded prefigurat
Antibiotic use in farming is now rampant. How meat is produced in China may mean the drugs you need here won’t work, says Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
Ahead of the United Nations climate talks in Brazil, advocacy groups are pushing for companies and governments to set meaningful emissions targets to lower emissions from livestock.
20 oktober 2025
The uniquely vulnerable West Antarctic Ice Sheet holds enough water to raise global sea levels by 5 meters. But when that will happen — and how fast — is anything but settled.
19 oktober 2025
US president’s son-in-law was instrumental in getting deal – which could bring him huge windfall if plan to redevelop Gaza ever comes to fruition […] For a man with no formal role in the White House, Jared Kushner last week literally took centre-stage as Donald Trump’s emissary to the Middle East. As the administration took a victory lap for hammering out a Gaza ceasefire last week, Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, stood in Tel Aviv’s ‘hostages square’, addressing a feverish crowd that had booed the mention of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and later broke into chants of: “Thank You Trump!”
Five of the seven breached planetary boundaries are linked to food systems. By transforming production and adopting a “planetary health diet,” we can halve food-related climate emissions and prevent millions of deaths, according to the 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission.
17 oktober 2025
Collapse has historically benefited the 99%. […] That’s the amazing conclusion of Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse. Luke is a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and has spent the past five years studying the collapse of civilisations throughout history. He joins me to explain his research, detailing the difference between complex, collective civilisations and what he calls “Goliaths”, massive centralising forces by which a small group of individuals extract wealth from the rest through domination and the threat of violence. Today, he says, we live in a global Goliath.
15 oktober 2025
CO2 in air hit new high last year, with scientists concerned natural land and ocean carbon sinks are weakening
Researchers have discovered dozens of new methane seeps littering the ocean floor in the Ross Sea coastal region of Antarctica, raising concerns of an unknown positive climate feedback loop that could accelerate global warming.
13 oktober 2025
GLOBAL TIPPING POINTS REPORT 2025 - Summary
GLOBAL TIPPING POINTS REPORT - 2025
12 oktober 2025
Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C ‘as fast as possible’, warm water coral reefs will not remain ‘at any meaningful scale’, a report by 160 scientists from 23 countries warns
We are an international group of researchers and practitioners interested in the emerging fields of post-growth and ecological macroeconomics. Our aim is to advance economic theory, methodology and policy in order to adequately address some of the biggest challenges of our time: climate change, rising inequality, and financial instability.
11 oktober 2025
Effective identification and assessment of various energy transition risks are essential for ensuring energy security. This study conducts a systematic review of the literature on energy transition risk assessment, with three principal objectives: ① establishing a standardized risk taxonomy, ② analyzing the characteristics of current assessment methodologies, and ③ identifying the priority research directions. First, energy transition risks are structured into two categories: implementation risks and consequential risks. Subsequently, assessment methodologies are categorized into five methodological groups: the indicator approach, probabilistic risk assessment approach, econometric approach, simulation approach, and hybrid approach.
09 oktober 2025
.. the real risk of geoengineering is not some Hollywood-style catastrophe, but complacency. A cheap way to delay the effects of warming risks undermining the need to rapidly reduce emissions, and going down that path would risk locking our children into a dependency where even stopping the process becomes too expensive to contemplate...
The World Sufficiency Lab is a non-profit and independent think-to-do tank, whose mission is to serve as the primary resource and voice for sufficiency worldwide.
08 oktober 2025
Report by joint intelligence committee delayed, with concerns expressed that it may not be published
We make meaningful climate action faster and easier by mobilizing the global tech community to track greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with unprecedented detail.
04 oktober 2025
Activist tells Swedish officials she has been subjected to harsh treatment, including insufficient food and water
01 oktober 2025
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
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.
Four key parts of the Earth’s climate system are destabilising, according to a new study with contributions from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Researchers analysed the interconnections of four major tipping elements: the Greenland ice sheet, the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), the Amazon rainforest and the South American monsoon system. All four show signs of diminished resilience, raising the risk of abrupt and potentially irreversible changes.
30 september 2025
Chapter 5 in the Routledge Handbook of Degrowth (2025) sketches the French origins of, and approaches to, décroissance. In France, décroissance emerged early – as part of the long history of debates on the industrialisation of the world and its impacts, and of a shorter history of political ecology over the last half-century. Although inspired by a long genealogy questioning the Western industrial trajectory, the word décroissance really came to the fore in the French protest and intellectual scene in 2002, with a convergence between anti-development and anti-advertising movements. Even if degrowth as a slogan and as a movement only emerged recently, its origins, influences, pioneers, pillars and debates were already very strong in the 1970s. After a long hiatus in the 1980s and 1990s, the term décroissance spread spectacularly, entering the political and activist arena at the beginning of the 21st century, designating a sub-group of political ecologists committed to criticising economic development as the do
29 september 2025
EU officials warn climate breakdown and wildlife loss ‘are ruining ecosystems that underpin the economy’ […] The European way of life is being jeopardised by environmental degradation, a report has found, with EU officials warning against weakening green rules. The continent has made “important progress” in cutting planet-heating pollution, according to the European Environment Agency, but the death of wildlife and breakdown of the climate are ruining ecosystems that underpin the economy.
The planet is nearing dangerous limits. Yet progress on clean energy shows what’s possible. With political will, cooperation can still avert the worst of the climate crisis
22 september 2025
The Production Gap Report finds that 10 years after the Paris Agreement, governments plan to produce more than double the volume of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, steering the world further from the Paris goals than the last such assessment in 2023.
20 september 2025
Analysis and forecast to 2030
The Implications of Oil and Gas Field Decline Rates
19 september 2025
Why Environmental Writing Isn’t Resonating As Much Anymore Active hope, not optimism. And why facts alone no longer move people. Environmental pieces aren’t landing like they used to. Writers, researchers, and activists are noticing the shift: climate content that once sparked engagement now fades into the background. The question isn’t whether people care about the planet — it’s that many readers are moving past narratives of awareness and individual action (or at least I think they should!). They want to understand power. They want to understand systems. They want hope rooted in collective transformation, not optimism sold as personal therapy. We Know the Planet Is Dying. So Now What?
18 september 2025
Report cites scale of killings and aid blockages, and calls on member countries to punish those responsible
17 september 2025
A California outfit has used artificial intelligence to design viral genomes before they were then built and tested in a laboratory. Following this, bacteria was then successfully infected with a number of these AI-created viruses, proving that generative models can create functional genetics. "The first generative design of complete genomes." That's what researchers at Stanford University and the Arc Institute in Palo Alto called the results of these experiments. A biologist at NYU Langone Health, Jef Boeke, celebrated the experiment as a substantial step towards AI-designed lifeforms, according to MIT Technology Review. "They saw viruses with new genes, with truncated genes, and even different gene orders and arrangements," Boeke said.
Legal analysis has accused Israel of committing genocide in four out of five categories as defined by 1948 convention
16 september 2025
Much attention today focuses on uncertainties affecting the future evolution of oil and natural gas demand, with less consideration given to how the supply picture could develop. However, understanding decline rates – the annual rate at which production declines from existing oil and gas fields – is crucial for assessing the outlook for oil and gas supply and, by extension, for market balances. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has long examined this issue, and a detailed understanding of decline rates is at the heart of IEA modelling and analysis, underpinning the insights provided by the scenarios in the World Energy Outlook. This new report – based on analysis of the production records of around 15 000 oil and gas fields around the world – explores the implications of accelerating decline rates, growing reliance on unconventional resources, and evolving project development patterns for the global oil and gas supply landscape, for energy security and for investment. It also provides regional insights
A UN commission has found Israel’s war in Gaza ranks among history’s greatest crimes. The UK government must stop hiding behind legal fictions and recognise the reality
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.
07 september 2025
In a simulation game, five off-the-shelf large language models or LLMs were confronted with fictional crisis situations that resembled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or China’s threat to Taiwan. The results? Almost all of the AI models showed a preference to escalate aggressively, use firepower indiscriminately and turn crises into shooting wars — even to the point of launching nuclear weapons.
04 september 2025
President Donald Trump has been sending campaign fundraising emails with the subject line: “I want to try and get to Heaven.” The emails follow recent public remarks regarding Russia’s war on Ukraine, in which he said he was trying to “get to heaven,” comments which gained national attention. Framing his political survival and legal battles as signs of divine purpose, the emails request supporters to donate $15 during a “24-HOUR TRUMP FUNDRAISING BLITZ.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has described her plan to “maximise extraction” of the UK’s oil and gas from the North Sea as a “common sense” energy policy. Politicians are using language like this increasingly often – calling themselves “pragmatic” on climate change and invoking “common sense”. It sounds reasonable, reassuring, and grownup – the opposite of “hysterical” campaigners or “unrealistic” targets.
03 september 2025
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.
02 september 2025
The Palestinian perspective: Israel is committing not only human violence, but also climate violence: genocide and ecocide.
30 augustus 2025
Climate.gov, which went dark this summer, to be revived by volunteers as climate.us with expanded missionEarlier this summer, access to climate.gov – one of the most widely used portals of climate information on the internet – was thwarted by the Trump administration, and its production team was fired in the process.
29 augustus 2025
Trump’s dictator-like behaviour is so brazen, so blatant, that paradoxically, we discount it. But now it’s time to call it what it is
28 augustus 2025
Gains in cutting deaths from tuberculosis at risk as health officials warn clinics forced to ration drugs and testing
Scientists say ‘shocking’ discovery shows rapid cuts in carbon emissions are needed to avoid catastrophic fallout
Several, more recent global warming projections in the coupled model intercomparison project 6 contain extensions beyond year 2100–2300/2500. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) in these projections shows transitions to extremely weak overturning below the surface mixed layer (<6 Sv; 1 Sv = 106 m3 s−1) in all models forced by a high-emission (SSP585) scenario and sometimes also forced by an intermediate- (SSP245) and low-emission (SSP126) scenario. These extremely weak overturning states are characterised by a shallow maximum overturning at depths less than 200 m and a shutdown of the circulation associated with North Atlantic deep water formation. Northward Atlantic heat transport at 26°N decreases to 20%–40% of the current observed value. Heat release to the atmosphere north of 45°N weakens to less than 20% of its present-day value and in some models completely vanishes, leading to strong cooling in the subpolar North Atlantic and Northwest Europe. In all cases, these transitions to a
26 augustus 2025
The 511 billion barrels reported is nearly double Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves and more than ten times the North Sea’s output over the last 50 years.
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.
24 augustus 2025
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is an important tipping element in the climate system. There is a large uncertainty whether the AMOC will start to collapse during the century under future climate change, as this requires long climate model simulations which are not always available. Here, we analyze targeted climate model simulations done with the Community Earth System Model (CESM) with the aim to develop a physics-based indicator for the onset of an AMOC tipping event. This indicator is diagnosed from the surface buoyancy fluxes over the North Atlantic Ocean and is performing successfully under quasi-equilibrium freshwater forcing, freshwater pulse forcing, climate change scenarios, and for different climate models. An analysis consisting of 25 different climate models shows that the AMOC could begin to collapse by 2063 (from 2026 to 2095, to percentiles) under an intermediate emission scenario (SSP2-4.5), or by 2055 (from 2023 to 2076, to percentiles) under a high-end emission scenar
23 augustus 2025
The world will warm more than expected due to future changes in ozone, which protects the Earth from harmful sun rays but also traps heat as it is a greenhouse gas. While banning ozone-destroying gases such as CFCs has helped the ozone layer to recover, when combined with increased air pollution the impact of ozone could warm the planet 40% more than originally thought.
22 augustus 2025
New research catalogs several “abrupt changes,” like a precipitous loss of sea ice, unfolding in Antarctica with dire implications for us all.
21 augustus 2025
This article examines the technocentric bias that characterizes climate mitigation literature, focusing on the reports of the IPCC's Working Group III. This bias stems from structural features of the scientific field that prioritizes innovation, leading to the overrepresentation of technological solutions in climate research. Funding mechanisms further reinforce this tendency by incentivizing collaboration with industrial R&D, creating a self-reinforcing loop in which scientific authority and industrial interests converge. The IPCC's institutional positioning—as a policy-relevant yet politically cautious body—amplifies this dynamic by favoring allegedly “cost-effective” technological pathways that lack practical feasibility.
Suspension of Soy moratorium could open up area of rainforest the size of Portugal to destruction
20 augustus 2025
A common pesticide can increase children’s risk of poor brain development and motor skills Kids exposed to chlorpyrifos while in the womb have altered neuron development and lower blood flow to their brains This can cause problems with motor skills among children
Our modelling of European fish species shows a patchwork of winners and losers as sea temperatures rise.
The vast ice of Antarctica has long seemed impregnable. But sudden changes are arriving – from shrinking sea ice to melting ice sheets and slowing ocean currents.
19 augustus 2025
The long read: Churning quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate we are going could lead the planet to another Great Dying
15 augustus 2025
Facebook and other social media platforms need to act to stop intimidation and harassment of environmental protectors
Some experts tee up public comment on EPA report calling fossil fuel concerns overblown, as others fast-track review
14 augustus 2025
Almost 100 countries reject draft treaty as ‘unambitious’ and ‘inadequate’
10 augustus 2025
Nonylphenol is a toxic xenobiotic compound classified as an endocrine disrupter capable of interfering with the hormonal system of numerous organisms. It originates principally from the degradation of nonylphenol ethoxylates which are widely used as industrial surfactants. Nonylphenol ethoxylates reach sewage treatment works in substantial quantities where they biodegrade into several by-products including nonylphenol. Due to its physical–chemical characteristics, such as low solubility and high hydrophobicity, nonylphenol accumulates in environmental compartments that are characterised by high organic content, typically sewage sludge and river sediments, where it persists.
Record heat, massive fires, deadly floods... August has barely begun, but the summer of 2025 is already marked by a cascade of destructive and deadly weather in the Northern Hemisphere.
As corporate interest in ocean carbon removal grows, researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are testing the safety and effectiveness of one such technique in the Gulf of Maine.
09 augustus 2025
US President Donald Trump's administration is revising past editions of the nation's premier climate report—its latest move to undermine the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.
The author of Empire of AI: Inside the Reckless Race for Total Domination discusses the cost of Big Tech’s huge investment in technologies that may do more harm than good
07 augustus 2025
A team of researchers in California drew notoriety last year with an aborted experiment on a retired aircraft carrier that sought to test a machine for creating clouds. But behind the scenes, they were planning a much larger and potentially riskier study of salt-water-spraying equipment that could eventually be used to dim the sun’s rays — a multimillion-dollar project aimed at producing clouds over a stretch of ocean larger than Puerto Rico.
06 augustus 2025
Passing 1.5ºC is now inevitable. Overshoot scenarios tell us that we can relatively safely pass this level but then bring temperatures back down again, but how realistic are they, and how safe?
Climate sensitivity is substantially higher than IPCC’s best estimate (3°C for doubled CO2), a conclusion we reach with greater than 99 percent confidence. We also show that global climate forcing by aerosols became stronger (increasingly negative) during 1970-2005, unlike IPCC’s best estimate of aerosol forcing. High confidence in these conclusions is based on a broad analysis approach. IPCC’s underestimates of climate sensitivity and aerosol cooling follow from their disproportionate emphasis on global climate modeling, an approach that will not yield timely, reliable, policy advice.
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