voir les traductions publiées
➔ 
2026 En cours :
filtre:
from
25 mars 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
11 mars 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.
06 mars 2026
Seven Ukrainians arrested and money-laundering investigation launched in latest spat between Kyiv and Budapest
02 mars 2026
What is currently happening in Brussels under the guise of regulatory simplification is being presented as something technical and logical. Less regulatory pressure, more competitiveness. A series of so-called omnibus bills are intended to streamline legislation. Reporting obligations are being limited and reassessments of raw materials postponed. It sounds like administrative efficiency. In Washington, things are moving even faster: Trump is dismantling the basis for climate laws while the world continues to warm up. The framing is the same: rules slow down businesses, and a slowed-down business community makes us poor. But that reasoning assumes something that is not true: that everyone wants the same thing from the market.
06 février 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.
28 janvier 2026
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 janvier 2026
Testimony from medics, morgue and graveyard staff reveals huge state effort to conceal systematic killing of protesters
21 janvier 2026
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.
31 décembre 2025
Legal action has brought important decisions, from the scrapping of fossil fuel plants to revised climate plans
28 novembre 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
22 novembre 2025
A deal is welcome after talks nearly collapsed but the final agreement contains small steps rather than leaps
04 novembre 2025
We propose a new paradigm, as toxicology currently lacks the proper perspective. From the 1950s to the 1970s, at least one-third of all toxicological testing in the United States, including for chemicals and drugs, was misleading scientists, and this worldwide issue persists today. Moreover, petroleum-based waste and heavy metals have been discovered in pesticide and plasticizer formulations. These contaminations have now reached all forms of life. Widespread exposure to chemical mixtures promotes health and environmental risks. We discovered that pesticides have never undergone long-term testing on mammals in their full commercial formulations by regulatory authorities or the pesticide industry; instead, only their declared active ingredients have been assessed, contrary to environmental law recommendations. The ingredients of these formulations are not fully disclosed, yet the formulations are in general at least 1000 times more toxic at low environmentally relevant doses than the active ingredients alone u
29 octobre 2025
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 octobre 2025
The latest Lancet Countdown report warns that health impacts of climate change are worsening, with millions dying needlessly each year due to fossil fuel dependence, growing greenhouse gas emissions, and failure to adequately adapt. As some countries and companies rollback on climate commitments, local and grassroots leadership is building momentum for a healthier future. The report represents the work of 128 experts from 71 institutions, monitoring progress across 57 indicators – from heat-related deaths to bank lending to fossil fuels – providing the most comprehensive assessment yet of the links between climate change and health.
21 octobre 2025
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.
17 octobre 2025
A climate-focused report out of Europe throws serious shade at plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) cars, pointing out that they emit nearly as much carbon dioxide emissions as combustion engine-powered vehicles. In fact, it highlights how real-world emissions from supposedly greener PHEVs has increased over the years above officially recorded figures to nearly five times. Yikes! The findings come from the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E), a clutch of non-government organizations focused on sustainable transport policy across the continent. The report has been published ahead of a review of automotive CO2 emission standards, which would see Europe continue to sell plug-in hybrid electric vehicles beyond 2035, when they're set to be phased out in order to meet EU climate targets.
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.
16 octobre 2025
It looked like snow under water: white, endless, and still. The reef, my friend Lisbeth said, was “the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.” For a second, I almost agreed. Then, I stared at it for a long time before replying. She wasn’t wrong about its beauty. But she was also showing me death. Bleached coral isn’t a kind of coral. It’s the moment just after the funeral, what’s left when life is gone. A cathedral of bone-white skeletons stretching over an empire of calcified death. From above, it glows like marble. Up close, it’s a graveyard.
12 octobre 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
22 septembre 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.
16 septembre 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
04 septembre 2025
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.
26 août 2025
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.
20 août 2025
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.
18 août 2025
Les autorités sanitaires européennes annoncent quatre malades en Belgique, au Danemark, aux Pays-Bas et en Norvège, en lien avec les fromages français infectés par la listeria.
24 juin 2025
The climate crisis has entered a decisive phase. Delaying climate measures increases the likelihood of crossing tipping points. Political shifts are weakening international cooperation when unity is vital. Yet, the Planetary Boundaries offer a path to a stable and sustainable future.
23 juin 2025
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
19 juin 2025
In a rapidly changing climate, evidence-based decision-making benefits from up-to-date and timely information. Here we compile monitoring datasets (published at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15639576; Smith et al., 2025a) to produce updated estimates for key indicators of the state of the climate system: net emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth's energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes. This year, we additionally include indicators for sea-level rise and land precipitation change. We follow methods as closely as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One report.
22 mai 2025
Russia’s war in Ukraine has encouraged a rapid increase in the deployment of drones that use fibre optic cables to protect them from being jammed or downed by electronic warfare: the drones trail kilometres of plastic cable across frontlines. In this post Leon Moreland explores the environmental risks posed by this new form of battlefield plastic pollution.
2026 Propositions :
filtre:
from
25 mars 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
11 mars 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.
06 mars 2026
Seven Ukrainians arrested and money-laundering investigation launched in latest spat between Kyiv and Budapest
02 mars 2026
What is currently happening in Brussels under the guise of regulatory simplification is being presented as something technical and logical. Less regulatory pressure, more competitiveness. A series of so-called omnibus bills are intended to streamline legislation. Reporting obligations are being limited and reassessments of raw materials postponed. It sounds like administrative efficiency. In Washington, things are moving even faster: Trump is dismantling the basis for climate laws while the world continues to warm up. The framing is the same: rules slow down businesses, and a slowed-down business community makes us poor. But that reasoning assumes something that is not true: that everyone wants the same thing from the market.
06 février 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.
28 janvier 2026
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 janvier 2026
Testimony from medics, morgue and graveyard staff reveals huge state effort to conceal systematic killing of protesters
21 janvier 2026
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.
31 décembre 2025
Legal action has brought important decisions, from the scrapping of fossil fuel plants to revised climate plans
28 novembre 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
22 novembre 2025
A deal is welcome after talks nearly collapsed but the final agreement contains small steps rather than leaps
04 novembre 2025
We propose a new paradigm, as toxicology currently lacks the proper perspective. From the 1950s to the 1970s, at least one-third of all toxicological testing in the United States, including for chemicals and drugs, was misleading scientists, and this worldwide issue persists today. Moreover, petroleum-based waste and heavy metals have been discovered in pesticide and plasticizer formulations. These contaminations have now reached all forms of life. Widespread exposure to chemical mixtures promotes health and environmental risks. We discovered that pesticides have never undergone long-term testing on mammals in their full commercial formulations by regulatory authorities or the pesticide industry; instead, only their declared active ingredients have been assessed, contrary to environmental law recommendations. The ingredients of these formulations are not fully disclosed, yet the formulations are in general at least 1000 times more toxic at low environmentally relevant doses than the active ingredients alone u
29 octobre 2025
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 octobre 2025
The latest Lancet Countdown report warns that health impacts of climate change are worsening, with millions dying needlessly each year due to fossil fuel dependence, growing greenhouse gas emissions, and failure to adequately adapt. As some countries and companies rollback on climate commitments, local and grassroots leadership is building momentum for a healthier future. The report represents the work of 128 experts from 71 institutions, monitoring progress across 57 indicators – from heat-related deaths to bank lending to fossil fuels – providing the most comprehensive assessment yet of the links between climate change and health.
21 octobre 2025
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.
17 octobre 2025
A climate-focused report out of Europe throws serious shade at plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) cars, pointing out that they emit nearly as much carbon dioxide emissions as combustion engine-powered vehicles. In fact, it highlights how real-world emissions from supposedly greener PHEVs has increased over the years above officially recorded figures to nearly five times. Yikes! The findings come from the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E), a clutch of non-government organizations focused on sustainable transport policy across the continent. The report has been published ahead of a review of automotive CO2 emission standards, which would see Europe continue to sell plug-in hybrid electric vehicles beyond 2035, when they're set to be phased out in order to meet EU climate targets.
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.
16 octobre 2025
It looked like snow under water: white, endless, and still. The reef, my friend Lisbeth said, was “the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.” For a second, I almost agreed. Then, I stared at it for a long time before replying. She wasn’t wrong about its beauty. But she was also showing me death. Bleached coral isn’t a kind of coral. It’s the moment just after the funeral, what’s left when life is gone. A cathedral of bone-white skeletons stretching over an empire of calcified death. From above, it glows like marble. Up close, it’s a graveyard.
12 octobre 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
22 septembre 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.
16 septembre 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
04 septembre 2025
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.
26 août 2025
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.
20 août 2025
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.
18 août 2025
Les autorités sanitaires européennes annoncent quatre malades en Belgique, au Danemark, aux Pays-Bas et en Norvège, en lien avec les fromages français infectés par la listeria.
24 juin 2025
The climate crisis has entered a decisive phase. Delaying climate measures increases the likelihood of crossing tipping points. Political shifts are weakening international cooperation when unity is vital. Yet, the Planetary Boundaries offer a path to a stable and sustainable future.
23 juin 2025
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
19 juin 2025
In a rapidly changing climate, evidence-based decision-making benefits from up-to-date and timely information. Here we compile monitoring datasets (published at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15639576; Smith et al., 2025a) to produce updated estimates for key indicators of the state of the climate system: net emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth's energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes. This year, we additionally include indicators for sea-level rise and land precipitation change. We follow methods as closely as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One report.
22 mai 2025
Russia’s war in Ukraine has encouraged a rapid increase in the deployment of drones that use fibre optic cables to protect them from being jammed or downed by electronic warfare: the drones trail kilometres of plastic cable across frontlines. In this post Leon Moreland explores the environmental risks posed by this new form of battlefield plastic pollution.
2025 Propositions :
filtre:
from
25 mars 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
11 mars 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.
06 mars 2026
Seven Ukrainians arrested and money-laundering investigation launched in latest spat between Kyiv and Budapest
02 mars 2026
What is currently happening in Brussels under the guise of regulatory simplification is being presented as something technical and logical. Less regulatory pressure, more competitiveness. A series of so-called omnibus bills are intended to streamline legislation. Reporting obligations are being limited and reassessments of raw materials postponed. It sounds like administrative efficiency. In Washington, things are moving even faster: Trump is dismantling the basis for climate laws while the world continues to warm up. The framing is the same: rules slow down businesses, and a slowed-down business community makes us poor. But that reasoning assumes something that is not true: that everyone wants the same thing from the market.
06 février 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.
28 janvier 2026
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 janvier 2026
Testimony from medics, morgue and graveyard staff reveals huge state effort to conceal systematic killing of protesters
21 janvier 2026
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.
31 décembre 2025
Legal action has brought important decisions, from the scrapping of fossil fuel plants to revised climate plans
28 novembre 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
22 novembre 2025
A deal is welcome after talks nearly collapsed but the final agreement contains small steps rather than leaps
04 novembre 2025
We propose a new paradigm, as toxicology currently lacks the proper perspective. From the 1950s to the 1970s, at least one-third of all toxicological testing in the United States, including for chemicals and drugs, was misleading scientists, and this worldwide issue persists today. Moreover, petroleum-based waste and heavy metals have been discovered in pesticide and plasticizer formulations. These contaminations have now reached all forms of life. Widespread exposure to chemical mixtures promotes health and environmental risks. We discovered that pesticides have never undergone long-term testing on mammals in their full commercial formulations by regulatory authorities or the pesticide industry; instead, only their declared active ingredients have been assessed, contrary to environmental law recommendations. The ingredients of these formulations are not fully disclosed, yet the formulations are in general at least 1000 times more toxic at low environmentally relevant doses than the active ingredients alone u
29 octobre 2025
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 octobre 2025
The latest Lancet Countdown report warns that health impacts of climate change are worsening, with millions dying needlessly each year due to fossil fuel dependence, growing greenhouse gas emissions, and failure to adequately adapt. As some countries and companies rollback on climate commitments, local and grassroots leadership is building momentum for a healthier future. The report represents the work of 128 experts from 71 institutions, monitoring progress across 57 indicators – from heat-related deaths to bank lending to fossil fuels – providing the most comprehensive assessment yet of the links between climate change and health.
21 octobre 2025
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.
17 octobre 2025
A climate-focused report out of Europe throws serious shade at plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) cars, pointing out that they emit nearly as much carbon dioxide emissions as combustion engine-powered vehicles. In fact, it highlights how real-world emissions from supposedly greener PHEVs has increased over the years above officially recorded figures to nearly five times. Yikes! The findings come from the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E), a clutch of non-government organizations focused on sustainable transport policy across the continent. The report has been published ahead of a review of automotive CO2 emission standards, which would see Europe continue to sell plug-in hybrid electric vehicles beyond 2035, when they're set to be phased out in order to meet EU climate targets.
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.
16 octobre 2025
It looked like snow under water: white, endless, and still. The reef, my friend Lisbeth said, was “the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.” For a second, I almost agreed. Then, I stared at it for a long time before replying. She wasn’t wrong about its beauty. But she was also showing me death. Bleached coral isn’t a kind of coral. It’s the moment just after the funeral, what’s left when life is gone. A cathedral of bone-white skeletons stretching over an empire of calcified death. From above, it glows like marble. Up close, it’s a graveyard.
12 octobre 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
22 septembre 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.
16 septembre 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
04 septembre 2025
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.
26 août 2025
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.
20 août 2025
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.
18 août 2025
Les autorités sanitaires européennes annoncent quatre malades en Belgique, au Danemark, aux Pays-Bas et en Norvège, en lien avec les fromages français infectés par la listeria.
24 juin 2025
The climate crisis has entered a decisive phase. Delaying climate measures increases the likelihood of crossing tipping points. Political shifts are weakening international cooperation when unity is vital. Yet, the Planetary Boundaries offer a path to a stable and sustainable future.
23 juin 2025
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
19 juin 2025
In a rapidly changing climate, evidence-based decision-making benefits from up-to-date and timely information. Here we compile monitoring datasets (published at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15639576; Smith et al., 2025a) to produce updated estimates for key indicators of the state of the climate system: net emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth's energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes. This year, we additionally include indicators for sea-level rise and land precipitation change. We follow methods as closely as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One report.
22 mai 2025
Russia’s war in Ukraine has encouraged a rapid increase in the deployment of drones that use fibre optic cables to protect them from being jammed or downed by electronic warfare: the drones trail kilometres of plastic cable across frontlines. In this post Leon Moreland explores the environmental risks posed by this new form of battlefield plastic pollution.