News & Comment

There is a significant 'action gap' between what scientists argue is necessary to prevent potentially dangerous climate change and what the government and public are doing. A coherent strategic narrative is key to making meaningful progress.

A post-2015 climate agreement will require systematic approaches for tracking adaptation progress across Parties to the UNFCC. A number of steps need to be taken to improve adaptation measurement and reporting.

Megaprojects such as oil sands mining require large-scale and long-term closure and reclamation plans. Yet these plans are created and approved without considering future climate and hydrological conditions, jeopardizing the sustainability of reclaimed landscapes.

The climate change encyclical represents a decisive democratic act. It calls on citizens to challenge dominant politics, power, and consumer culture in the name of tackling one of the world's great socio-environmental issues.

The IPCC's new leadership needs to promote reforms to make the panel more relevant to the actors that use the organization's information.

The Pope's encyclical challenges incremental approaches that have dominated climate change discourse, and brings a much needed moral vision to the environmental movement. Social scientists are required to join this effort.

The Pope's encyclical makes unprecedented progress in developing scientific dialogue with religion by drawing on research, and encouraging further discussion about the ethical challenge of governing the global commons.

The Pope has made a strong call for action on climate change, but it fails to address the complex linkages between sustainable development and demographic growth.

The Pope has articulated a need to change the way society thinks about economic growth, but it is implausible to rely primarily on moral conversion to solve our environmental and social ills.

Many sub-Saharan countries are failing to include climate information in long-term development planning. Ensuring climate-resilient development requires a step change in how medium- to long-term climate information is produced, communicated and utilized in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.

A much-anticipated 'monster' El Niño failed to materialize in 2014, whereas an unforeseen strong El Niño is developing in 2015. El Niño continues to surprise us, despite decades of research into its causes. Natural variations most probably account for recent events, but climate change may also have played a role.

Expansion of the oil sands industry in Canada has caused land destruction and social friction. Canada could become a leader in climate governance by honouring treaty commitments made with indigenous peoples.

How can we measure disaster loss reduction in the absence of reliable loss data on the economic and human impacts? Existing loss accounting systems vastly underestimate the true burden of disasters, both nationally and globally.

Reforming fossil fuel subsidies could free up enough funds to finance universal access to water, sanitation, and electricity in many countries, as well as helping to cut global greenhouse-gas emissions.

Global flood risk models were developed to identify risk hotspots in a world with increasing flood occurrence. Here we assess the ability and limitations of the current models and suggest what is needed moving forward.

Cutting levels of soot and other short-lived pollutants delivers tangible benefits and helps governments to build confidence that collective action on climate change is feasible. After the Paris climate meeting this December, actually reducing these pollutants will be essential to the credibility of the diplomatic process.

Initiatives to adapt to the effects of climate change are growing in number but may fail to achieve the desired outcomes unless critical competing interests are taken into account during the planning process.

The third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction ended with an agreement lacking ambition. The conference showed that better communication between the scientific community and decision-makers is needed to develop informed frameworks.

Subnational socio-economic datasets are required if we are to assess the impacts of global environmental changes and to improve adaptation responses. Institutional and community efforts should concentrate on standardization of data collection methodologies, free public access, and geo-referencing.

Climate scientists can do a better job of communicating their work to local communities and reignite interest in the issue. Local media outlets provide a unique opportunity to build a platform for scientists to tell their stories and engage in a dialogue with people currently outside the 'climate bubble'.