Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
A Global Pact for the Environment is gathering pace to become a binding international agreement. Yann Aguila, Sciences Po, and Jorge Viñuales, University of Cambridge, talk to Nature Sustainability about its global significance and potential, and about the importance of social support to make it happen.
As transitioning to a more sustainable energy system is imperative, Nature Sustainability and Tongji University launch an Expert Panel to shed light on the integrative research efforts needed to develop the next generation of batteries.
Consensus on carbon accounting approaches at city-level is lacking and analytic frameworks to systematically link carbon mitigation with the Sustainable Development Goals are limited. A new accounting approach anchored upon key physical provisioning systems can help to address these knowledge gaps and facilitate urban transitions.
Sustainably transitioning to electric vehicles is challenging where transport and electricity systems are poorly defined due to a lack of data, such as those dominated by paratransit (informal, privately owned ‘public’ transport). We call for a more systemic approach to data collection as a key enabler for this transition.
Awaiting the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to be held in China late in 2021, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary to the CBD, talks to Nature Sustainability about the challenges of stepping up efforts to address biodiversity decline.
The delayed Tokyo Olympics were promised to be an example of how to stage an ecologically and socially responsible mega-event, but historical evidence and current trends suggest this may not be possible.
Staging the Olympics now requires attention to sustainability and urban legacy. Resolving their competing demands rests on recognizing the realities of the host city–IOC relationship.
Experts around the world have been informing governments’ plans for a post-pandemic recovery. Leena Srivastava, Deputy Director General for Science at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and Heide Hackmann, Chief Executive officer at the International Science Council (ISC), talk to Nature Sustainability about the recent joint effort ‘Bouncing forward sustainably. Pathways to a post-COVID world’.
Improving environmental stewardship requires improvement of the options available down to the poorest resource users. Agriculture will no longer be the path to development and better options that it once was, without rethinking how and where to intervene. An iconic video game provides a lens into how this can happen.
Universities and research centres around the world have made significant progress towards establishing collaborative, interdisciplinary initiatives in sustainability science. However, more needs to be done to support the career development of junior sustainability scholars whose work is often team based and outreach oriented.
The COVID-19 outbreak has stimulated calls for a global wildlife trade ban. Such actions may only partially curb pandemic risk while negatively affecting people who depend on wildlife. More worryingly, they may provide cover for inaction on issues that would make a true difference in preventing future pandemics.
China’s decision to ban the trade and consumption of terrestrial wild animals, while controversial, is a viable response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ban has implications that extend beyond safeguarding human health to also help combat illegal wildlife trade and protect threatened species.
