Reviews & Analysis

The remaining carbon budget for 1.5 °C has been a highly discussed tool to communicate the urgency of efforts needed to meet the Paris Agreement. Now, research reassesses IPCC estimates, suggesting that ongoing near-flat emissions and methodological choices can make big relative differences to the tiny remaining 1.5 °C budget.

Global warming and overfishing are impacting fish species distribution, total catch and aquaculture viability, limiting our ability to harvest vital micronutrients that support human health.

Nature-based solutions are essential to avoid climate crisis, yet how best to estimate their long-run effects is unclear. Here the authors propose a new dynamic accounting method that captures the impermanence of these carbon impacts, allowing investors to make robust comparisons across projects.

The collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a worrying climate tipping point, with the potential to raise global sea level by up to 5.3 metres. Now, an assessment of future climate scenarios suggests that accelerated melting of ice shelves in West Antarctica is locked in, even for the most ambitious emissions reduction scenarios.

Assessing progress and gaps in climate adaptation is a key policy concern, and also raises scientific challenges around which metrics should be used and who should assess progress. A structured expert judgement using local case studies shows that, for coastal areas, today’s global adaptation is halfway to achieving the full adaptation potential.

Over the past years, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have seen a range of developments around climate mitigation and environmental policy. Nature Climate Change asked a selection of scientists from the region to share their thoughts on research questions and responses to climate change in their area of study.

In this Perspective, the authors highlight agroforestry as a natural climate solution, discussing definitional refinements, controls on mitigation potential and remote sensing innovations. They assess the status of agroforestry in the context of climate ambitions, identifying key areas and opportunities.

Establishment of the loss and damage fund is a major step in climate negotiations for Global South countries, yet resource allocation remains unsettled. This Review shows how vulnerability-based approaches are variable and complex, with the adoption of quantitative measures likely to bring division.

An insight into the global patterns of marine heatwaves from the surface to depths of 2,000 m reveals that subsurface events are more intense and long-lasting than surface ones. Biodiversity exposure to the effects of marine heatwaves is higher at depths of 50–250 m, suggesting that subsurface biodiversity could be at considerable risk.

Net-zero pledges are emerging around the world, but to be consequential they must compel credibility as a core objective of climate policy design. This paper proposes an approach, named backward induction, that aims to maximize policy credibility by balancing building commitment and cost efficiency.

In this Perspective, the authors highlight the potential of animal-borne sensors to overcome common limitations of traditional climate measurements. Animal-borne sensors can provide fine-grained and ecologically relevant sampling, and tagged animals could function as environmental sentinels worldwide.

A multi-model analysis shows that the incorporation of advances in damage functions — namely growth effects — substantially increases the social cost estimates of methane and nitrous oxide, although uncertainty remains.

Oxygen concentrations are a key aspect of water quality, with low levels linked to ecosystem stress. Research indicates that oxygen levels will decrease in hundreds of rivers across the USA and Central Europe under climate change.

Emission savings from three circular economy strategies aiming to close, slow and narrow China’s bulk material loops have been analysed using an integrated model. This analysis highlights that material recycling delivers substantial emission cuts, but demand reduction is equally crucial for decarbonizing bulk materials.

Weather station records are too short and sparse to effectively detect the signature of climate change in Antarctica. Using the isotopic composition of ice cores as a temperature proxy suggests that Antarctica is warming faster than the global average temperature and expectations from climate models for the region.

A network of more than 100 researchers tracked trees for up to 30 years in forest plots across South America, enabling estimation of the impacts of record temperatures and drought on carbon dynamics. The carbon sink in these forests ceased during the 2015–2016 El Niño, with drier forests losing the most carbon.

Arctic uplands consume atmospheric methane, but whereas methane emissions are reasonably well studied, Arctic soil methane uptake is poorly understood. High-resolution measurements show that the Arctic soil methane sink might currently be underestimated, and is driven by soil moisture and labile carbon availability, implying increased methane uptake with climate change.

Declining snow cover poses a substantial risk for many ski resorts that often counter this trend with snowmaking, leading to increasing emissions caused by ski tourism. Research now quantifies the risks of rising temperatures to the skiing industry at the pan-European level, together with the potential and emissions of snowmaking.

Amidst the Arctic sea-ice decline and the consequent increasing under-ice light transmittance, Arctic zooplankton face challenging times. The collection of a unique dataset in the central Arctic Ocean unravels the patterns of their vertical migration, signalling potential disruptions to the Arctic ecosystem.

Reducing the risk of maladaptation is critical to successful climate adaptation, yet such dichotomy hampers nuanced assessments of adaptation outcomes. The authors provide a framework to assess relevant dimensions of adaptation outcomes on a continuum and apply it to various adaptation options.