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The high points of collective ambition and achievement reached in Paris need nurturing to ensure results. Maintaining momentum in climate action requires investment and ongoing commitment from all actors.
The atmospheric concentration of CO2 at the time of passing 1.5 °C or 2 °C is unknown due to uncertainties in climate sensitivity and the concentrations of other GHGs. Impacts studies must account for a wide range of concentrations to avoid either over- or underestimating changes in crop yields and land and marine biodiversity.
A global effort is underway to restore more than 350 million hectares of deforested and degraded land by bringing together reforestation commitments under the Bonn Challenge. Molly Hawes investigates the benefits and complexities of returning land to forest.
Climate change-driven alterations in storminess pose a significant threat to global capture fisheries. Understanding how storms interact with fishery social-ecological systems can inform adaptive action and help to reduce the vulnerability of those dependent on fisheries for life and livelihood.
The benefits of limiting global warming to the lower Paris Agreement target of 1.5 °C are substantial with respect to population exposure to heat, and should impel countries to strive towards greater emissions reductions.
In key European cities, stabilizing climate warming at 1.5 °C would decrease extreme heat-related mortality by 15–22% per summer compared with stabilization at 2 °C.
Low-probability, high-consequence climate change events are likely to trigger management responses that are based on the demand for immediate action from those affected. However, these responses may be inefficient and even maladaptive in the long term.
New international governance arrangements that manage environmental risk and potential conflicts of interests are needed to facilitate negative emissions research that is essential to achieving the large-scale CO2 removal implied by the Paris Agreement targets.
Credit ratings agencies are now accounting for climate change risks in their ratings of credit worthiness. This could incentivize climate risk reduction efforts if it allows organizations access to cheaper credit. Karl Mathiesen investigates the extent to which this is happening in practice.
Current and future climate change poses a substantial threat to the African continent. Young scientists are needed to advance Earth systems science on the continent, but they face significant challenges.
Literature reviews can help to inform decision-making, yet they may be subject to fatal bias if not conducted rigorously as ‘systematic reviews’. Reporting standards help authors to provide sufficient methodological detail to allow verification and replication, clarifying when key steps, such as critical appraisal, have been omitted.
Evidence synthesis is increasingly valuable for a rapidly growing body of literature. We encourage authors to embrace available guidance and reporting standards to maximize the scientific value and broader utility of their work.
Until recently, national bans on fossil fuel-related activities were a taboo subject, but they are now becoming increasingly common. The logic of appropriateness that underpins such bans is key to understanding their normative appeal, and to explaining and predicting their proliferation.
