News & Comment

With climate change impacts increasingly being felt by more of the world’s population, adaptation efforts are urgently needed. However, similar to the unequal distribution of climate change impacts, the ability of societies to adapt is also heterogeneous.

A gap persists between the emissions reductions pledged by countries under the Paris Agreement and those resulting from their domestic policies. We argue that this gap in fact contains two parts: one in the policies that countries adopt, and the other in the outcomes that those policies achieve.

The narrative that certain areas will inevitably become uninhabitable owing to sea-level rise is powerful, yet may silence important debate about alternative climate adaptation futures. In particular, populations with low emissions and funding capacity should have their narratives centralized in adaptation.

Companies rarely disclose underlying calculations for their science-based emission reduction targets and the targets themselves lack important details. Increased transparency is necessary to assess justice implications, evaluate the sufficiency of aggregate emission reductions and hold companies accountable for actions on their targets.

After an early forecast, El Niño has now officially arrived. As a result, global temperatures and extreme events will be elevated, affecting health, water availability, food security, wildfires and economic productivity across the world in the coming years.

Climate change impacts on insect pollinators has largely focused on changes in abundance and range, yet pollination capacity also relies on ability to acquire, process and respond to information. We argue for the urgent need to focus on these largely overlooked processes by describing how insect sensory ecology and behaviour are affected by temperature and highlighting key knowledge gaps that should be addressed.

The industrial emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas and stratospheric ozone-depleting substance, have increased since 2010. However, untapped abatement potential for industrial emissions currently exists through low-cost technologies.

Adjusting green public support programmes to green premiums can reduce public spending, yet this is challenged by uncertainty. Underfunding green technologies can delay the green transition, and overfunding them can increase transition costs. Both risks of under- and overfunding can be reduced using responsive adjustments.