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Global energy and materials are essential to the functioning of the economy and have significant implications for macroeconomics and the environment. At the same time, the world is not on track to meet Paris Agreement goals. This paper documents two stylized facts that connect these observations. First, the world economy is characterized by large embedded emissions and materials: different energies and materials are deeply entwined and interdependent. This has historically led to additive – rather than substitution – dynamics in energy and materials on a global scale. Second, historically there has been a strong positive correlation between efficiency in resource use and total resource use at a global scale. We synthesize these observations by introducing the Generalized Jevons Paradox (GJP). We argue that the GJP reflects the direct and indirect energy/material demand effects of long-term energy and material interdependencies, themselves shaped by market and geoeconomic power, trade arrangements, and financi

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

Plus le climat se réchauffe, moins les super El Niño font leur effet habituel. Une étude publiée dans Geophysical Research Letters révèle un paradoxe : ces phénomènes extrêmes deviendront plus fréquents, mais leurs impacts caractéristiques sur l’Amérique du Nord s’atténueront d’un tiers. Dans un monde à +3,5°C, un super El Niño ressemblera à un épisode banal.

Projections of near-term climate change are a potential research tool. However, for that tool to be most useful, the physical basis for a prediction must be made clear. The basis for our projection of record 2026 global temperature is high climate sensitivity, with its implication that aerosol cooling was still increasing during the period 1970-2005. One consequence, global sea surface warming, already has important effects. Causes of climate change must be understood for policy purposes. Figures in this post and our recent papers are continually updated on our website.[1] We are also now on Substack[2].

The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate.

Halting and reversing the global decline in biodiversity is now urgent to avoid destabilizing Earth's vital systems that support human well-being. That's the stark message of a new paper published today in Frontiers in Science. The authors warn that without protecting remaining intact biomes and ecosystems, climate and development goals will be impossible to achieve.

World is approaching point where no one can shut down a rogue AI, says director of body behind research

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.

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

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

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

After holding steady since the 1970s, warming in the last decade nearly doubled its pace, setting a track to 1.5 degrees before 2030

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

A new study indicates that anxiety about social and economic collapse due to climate change is pervasive in Australia. The nationwide survey (commissioned by the author and carried out by Roy Morgan Research) reveals that nearly a third of Australians are ‘very or extremely concerned’ about social and economic collapse occurring by 2050. Three in five Australians (60 per cent) are at least moderately concerned.

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.