Commentary

The 4‰ initiative to sequester carbon in soils has the potential to connect sustainable development goals, enhance food security and mitigate climate change by utilizing waste organic residues.

Climate change is a playground for visualization. Yet research and technological innovations in visual communication and data visualization do not account for a substantial part of the world's population: vulnerable audiences with low levels of literacy.

While tackling interdependencies among food, energy, and water security is promising, three fundamental challenges to effective operationalization need addressing: the feasibility of science-policy integration, cross-scale inequalities, and path-dependencies in infrastructure and socio-institutional practices.

Successful projection of the distribution of surface temperature change increases our confidence in climate models. Here we evaluate projections of global warming from almost 30 years ago using the observations made during the past half century.

President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline in 2015 established the viability of grassroots mobilization modelled on the social movement organization Bold Nebraska. This set a precedent for communities fighting energy projects that threaten natural resources and contribute to climate change.

An international coalition of museums could play a critical role in coordinating more effective public communication on and engagement with climate change.

Human activity is changing Earth's climate. Now that this has been acknowledged and accepted in international negotiations, climate research needs to define its next frontiers.

A holistic and transdisciplinary approach is urgently required to investigate the physical and socio-economic impacts of collapsing coastlines in the Arctic nearshore zone.

How clouds respond to warming remains the greatest source of uncertainty in climate projections. Improved computational and observational tools can reduce this uncertainty. Here we discuss the need for research focusing on high-resolution atmosphere models and the representation of clouds and turbulence within them.

Political upsets could stall coordinated international mitigation action, but emissions and investments over the next few years will have long-term consequences. Any delays to mitigation or cuts to renewable energy research by the US will likely render the 2 °C target unachievable if a global precedent is set.

An end-to-end comprehensive climate information system is needed to complement mitigation and adaptation as responses to the threat of human-induced climate change.

Cities are becoming increasingly important in combatting climate change, but their overall role in global solution pathways remains unclear. Here we suggest structuring urban climate solutions along the use of existing and newly built infrastructures, providing estimates of the mitigation potential.

To catalyse climate transformation, we need leadership everywhere. It is time for more of us to take the first steps to lead actively.

Avoiding losses from climate change requires socially engaged research that explains what people value highly, how climate change imperils these phenomena, and strategies for embracing and managing grief.

Earth's surface gained 115,000 km² of water and 173,000 km² of land over the past 30 years, including 20,135 km² of water and 33,700 km² of land in coastal areas. Here, we analyse the gains and losses through the Deltares Aqua Monitor — an open tool that detects land and water changes around the globe.

Understanding how the overall risks of extreme events are changing in a warming world requires both a thermodynamic perspective and an understanding of changes in the atmospheric circulation.

The impacts of climate change imply a reconceptualization of environment-related criminality. Criminology can offer insight into the definitions and dynamics of this behaviour, and outline potential areas of redress.

The success of the Paris Agreement relies on a system of 'pledge and review', and the power of shaming laggards. This puts much of the burden for holding countries accountable on civil society.

Indonesian peatlands need to be protected and restored to prevent fires and the health, environmental and economic impact that they have on the wider region.

The Paris Agreement duly reflects the latest scientific understanding of systemic global warming risks. Limiting the anthropogenic temperature anomaly to 1.5–2 °C is possible, yet requires transformational change across the board of modernity.