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Greenhouse gas emissions can be allocated to individual countries in various ways depending on where in the supply chain the emissions originated; achieving an effective and just climate policy may require multiple accounting systems.
A new global climate change deal should credit low-carbon energy sector finance from the developing world. Failure to coordinate standards could hinder low-carbon development in the decades to come.
It is sometimes assumed that making climate change seem 'closer to home' is a good way to catalyse action. But insights from psychology suggest that people's reaction to the proximity of climate change is complex.
This Perspective considers the influence of marine predators on carbon cycling in salt marshes, seagrass meadows, and mangroves, and the potential role that these carbon-rich vegetated coastal ecosystems could play in climate change mitigation.
A new decision framework, eco-engineering decision scaling, aims to provide a robust foundation for advancing sustainable water management that will meet the needs of both humans and ecosystems under future hydrological uncertainty.
Here it is argued that air pollution over West African cities needs greater consideration. The effects of aerosol pollution on clouds and solar and thermal radiation can be expected to alter regional climate and impact human health and food security.
Projections of African ecological responses to climate change diverge widely. This Perspective unpicks some of the reasons for this uncertainty and reveals the importance of accounting for the influences of disturbancesand climate on vegetation.
Mixed crop and livestock farms are the backbone of African agriculture, yet there is little information on how these systems may be affected by changes in climate. Addressing this knowledge gap could help smallholders adapt to climate change.
There are hopes thatthe dynamic forms of climate governance appearing in different domains will be effective in tackling climate change. This Perspective assesses the future prospects for this so-called polycentric pattern of climate governance.
This Perspective explores whether policymakers can learn from adaptive management techniques to make climate policies 'anti-fragile', embracing and benefitting from scientific uncertainty, rather than simply being robust to it.
Local weather influences perception of climate change. Although weather is not representative of climate, this study shows that the percentage of the population experiencing higher temperatures has increased, in line with climate model projections.
Deep-sea coral reefs off southeast Australia are threatened by climate change and ocean acidification. An immediate priority to conserve these sensitive ecosystems would be the identification and protection of refugia areas.
There have been calls for more voices from the global south to engage in the climate engineering debate. A Berkeley Workshop held in July 2014 achieved just this, identifying themes that should inform research and governance in this arena.
The recent FACE model–data synthesis project used data from two FACE experiments to assess land ecosystem models. This Perspective details the 'assumption-centered' approach used to identify and evaluate the causes of model differences.
Clean electricity generation is good for the climate and improves the quality of the air that we breathe. An analysis of US power plants shows that the magnitude of the resulting health benefits depends greatly on the carbon standards adopted.
