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DeBriefed 22 May 2026: UN adopts landmark resolution | Trump takes on ‘RCP8.5’ | Climate migration
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
ICJ OPINION: The UN has adopted a resolution backing a landmark world court opinion stating that countries have a legal obligation to address climate change, reported the Guardian. Some 141 countries voted in favour of the resolution, while only eight voted against: the US; Israel; Iran; Russia; Belarus; Saudi Arabia; Yemen; and Liberia. There were also 28 absentations, including India and Turkey, the host of COP31.
‘DETERMINED’: The text adopted by the UN general assembly “stresses” that “climate change is an unprecedented challenge of civilizational proportions” and says the assembly is “determined” to “translate the court’s findings into enhanced multilateral cooperation and accelerated climate action at all levels, consistent with international law”. The text “urges” states to implement measures including “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems”. It also “requests” the next UN secretary general to report on progress in 2027 and adds a formal follow-up to the agenda of the UN general assembly in 2028.
AMENDMENTS REJECTED: A UN press summary detailed how countries rejected four proposed amendments to the text by a group of largely Arab nations. These amendments would have undercut the world court’s legal advice on countries’ climate obligations by saying its views should only be taken into account “as appropriate”. They also would have added a reference to 2C, instead of focusing on 1.5C alone, got rid of the formal follow-up process in 2028 and added a reference to the role of carbon capture and storage.
Scenario sceptic‘GOOD RIDDANCE’: US president Donald Trump declared “good riddance” to a very high emissions modelling scenario in a Truth Social post on Saturday, misleadingly stating that “the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that its own projections (RCP8.5) were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!” The post was quickly picked up by right-leaning media, including Fox News, the New York Post and the Australian.
NEW SCENARIOS: Trump’s claim follows the publication of a new set of emissions scenarios that will underpin research cited in the next set of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In a guest post for Carbon Brief, scientists explained that the very high emissions scenario has “become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emission trends”.
TRUMP FACTCHECKED:Carbon Brief published a factcheck of Trump’s claims. It noted that the IPCC does not develop, control or own climate scenarios and has not published anything stating that any climate scenario is “wrong”. It added: “Projections suggest that the world is still on course for between 2.5C and 3C of warming…previously described as ‘catastrophic’ by the UN.”
- ADAPTATION NEEDED: The UK’s Climate Change Committee outlined how investing in adaptation now could produce “long-term savings”, Carbon Brief reported. UK ministers are preparing to accept a CCC recommendation to “set a legally binding goal of cutting emissions 87% by 2040”, reported the Times.
- ELECTRIFY EVERYTHING: COP31 president-designate Murat Kurum told the Copenhagen climate ministerial that countries should be “decarbonising the way we generate electricity, but also expanding electrification into every sphere of life”, according to Climate Home News.
- STAFF CUT: Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, is preparing to fire one-third of the team working on the national climate model that provides future projections, reported the Guardian.
- TARGET MISSED: An independent body has warned that Germany is expected to miss its 2030 climate goals and emit more CO2 than previously forecast, reported Reuters. According to Deutsche Welle, the country could breach its goal by up to 100m tonnes of CO2.
- PEAK POWER: India’s peak power demand “smashed all records” on Tuesday, after the country’s ongoing heatwave drove a “sharp rise” in electricity consumption, according to the Economic Times. The record fell again on Thursday, said Reuters.
The number of countries in the world that have net-zero targets.
2Major emitters that do not have a net-zero target – a group comprising Iran and the US, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Latest climate research- Global warming above 4C is projected to cause large decreases in “climate connectivity” between habitats for land animals | Nature Climate Change
- Around 6% of respiratory deaths in Brazil from 2010-20 were attributable to “non-optimal temperatures”, accounting for more than 66,000 excess deaths | PLOS Climate
- Fungi that cause diseases in plants will approximately double in abundance around the Antarctic Peninsula by 2100 under a moderate emissions scenario | Global Change Biology
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
CapturedThe world added nearly 100 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-power capacity in 2025 – the equivalent of roughly 100 large coal plants – according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM). This is a ten-year high, according to Carbon Brief’s coverage, which noted that the world’s coal plants nevertheless generated less electricity. The chart above shows that 95% of the new coal plants were built in India and China last year.
Spotlight Climate migrationThis week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts at a conference on migration and climate change in London about what their research could mean for how people move around the world in the future.
Prof Kerilyn Schewel, assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel HillWe have moved beyond a ‘push factor’ narrative – that climate change is coming and uprooting communities – to a more nuanced perspective that recognises that people are already moving for all kinds of reasons… [For example] the more that young people are accessing formal education, the more they want to leave – particularly rural communities. We have to be very careful not to assume that when people want to leave, it is always driven by climate change. There are other developmental factors that are also shaping desires to move. This is a research frontier – seeing how environmental factors intersect with these other social or developmental outcomes.
Dr Aromar Revi, founding director of the Indian Institute for Human SettlementsThe future of mobility is much more certain than [climate change is]. People have been mobile for a very long time. That’s been an important part of the transformation of societies and economies for centuries…mobility is part of the solution [to climate change]. It is not the full solution, but it’s part of the solution. People are voting with their feet and with their aspirations to make a change.
Prof Nitya Rao, a professor of gender and development at the University of East AngliaThere are many things that the system can do to welcome migrants and be more sensitive to different types of migrants and their needs… In the short term, [migrants] need piped water, a proper home, care for young children…In the longer term, we have to address structural inequality. There are still barriers to people accessing resources – especially productive assets such as land, capital and livestock…And these barriers are split by gender, class, ethnicity and so on. These need to be addressed, I think, to really make migration a case of [climate] adaptation and not just survival.
Prof Jon Barnett, professor in the school of geography, earth and atmospheric sciences at the University of MelbourneIn the Pacific islands, international migration isn’t driven by climate change. It’s enabled by the capacity of people to cross borders, so it’s all about migration agreements. As climate change amplifies pressures on people’s livelihoods, we may end up with a whole series of transnational populations that are kind of constantly in churn – where they’re not just living on the island, but also in Australia, New Zealand, the US.
Dr Maria Franco Gavonel, lecturer in global social policy and international development at the University of YorkThe migration response towards almost any climate event is short lived and short distance, so it will mostly affect internal movement rather than international…So all these narratives about climate refugees – like human rights related to international migration – are overstating the extent to which this is going to happen.
Dr Benoy Peter, the executive director of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development in IndiaEvery one of us, including you and me, have benefited from migration. Migration is the fastest way for intergenerational upward social mobility for people from socially and economically disadvantaged populations. So I see migration as a [climate] solution.
Cecilia Keating also contributed to this spotlight. Read more of Carbon Brief’s coverage of the conference.
Watch, read, listenTICE QUESTIONED: The Bloomberg Zero podcast interviewed Richard Tice, the deputy leader of the hard-right Reform UK party, who exposed his rejection of climate science and support for the oil and gas industry.
‘CLIMATE CROSSROADS’: The Guardian examined how Colombia’s upcoming election could leave the major oil-and-gas producer at a “climate crossroads”.
LAND GRAB: A Floodlight investigation for Inside Climate News examined “Trump officials, billionaires and the quiet reshaping of America’s public lands”.
Coming up- 24 May: Cyprus elections
- 28-29 May: Blue economy and finance forum, Monaco
- 28 May: International Energy Agency (IEA) World Energy Investment 2026 report launch
- Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, editor in chief | Salary: $140,000-$160,000. Location: Washington DC, Chicago or New York City
- Climate Outreach, researcher | Salary: £44,000. Location: Remote (UK)
- University of Manchester, research associate, energy and climate governance | Salary: £37,694-£46,049. Location: Manchester, UK
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 22 May 2026: UN adopts landmark resolution | Trump takes on ‘RCP8.5’ | Climate migration appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Experts: Why migration is ‘not a failure of adaptation’ in a warming world
Hundreds of scientists gathered in London this week to discuss the role of migration as a way for communities to adapt to climate change.
The impacts of a warming world, such as sea level rise and worsening extremes, are pushing many people around the world to leave their homes.
As a form of climate adaptation, a decision to migrate involves an array of different factors, such as politics, conflict and economic opportunity.
The conference unpacked these topics, as well as the impacts of climate change on livelihoods, relocation and gender norms across Africa and Asia.
The event had a strong focus on urban areas, with one co-convenor stating that “half of the world’s population now lives in the cities…A lot of the battles of climate adaptation will be won and lost in cities.”
Another co-convenor told Carbon Brief that the conference’s “focus really is on the climate change adaptation community, showing that migration is not a failure of adaptation – it is part of adaptation”.
Carbon Brief attended the conference to report on the sessions and speak to world-leading experts on climate-driven migration.
- Migration as adaptation
- Cities and livelihoods
- Immobility and relocation
- Legal pathways
- Changing narratives
The two-day conference on “mobility in adaptation to climate change” was held at Wellcome’s headquarters in London. It gathered more than 100 leading experts in migration, adaptation and climate change from countries across Europe, Africa and Asia.
On day one of the conference, co-convenor Prof Neil Adger, a professor from the University of Exeter, told Carbon Brief:
“Our focus really is on the climate change adaptation community, showing that migration is not a failure of adaptation – it is part of adaptation.”
In his opening address, Adger highlighted that there were still many unknowns on climate migration – such as how and when it is an appropriate way to adapt to climate change, and who benefits and loses in these situations.
Prof Neil Adger from the University of Exeter, opening the conference. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.Dr Manuela Di Mauro – the head of climate-adaptation research at the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office – took to the stage next. She told attendees that mobility has always been a part of human life, stating:
“We are all migrants. We are all part of the same history.”
She urged the scientific community to “learn the language and the political perspective” needed to support and engage with policymakers about climate-driven migration.
Conference co-convenor Dr Chandni Singh from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) then delivered the first in-depth talk of the conference, outlining the current state of knowledge on climate change and migration.
She explained that cross-border migration is “emotionally and economically arduous” adding “under a changing climate, people choose to move within national borders first”. (Estimates suggest that around three-quarters of total global migration is internal.)
Singh emphasised that “mobility choices are extremely complex and nuanced, based on one’s aspirations and capabilities, social norms and asset bases”. She continued:
“Some [people] are forced to move or are displaced, others are relocated preemptively to move people out of harm’s way and others choose to stay despite escalating risk – or because resilience-building measures allow people to stay.”
She stressed that people need resources to migrate, so the poorest people are often unable to move – leaving them in a state of “immobility”. However, she also noted that most people do not want to leave their homes, stressing the “visceral reality of place attachment”.
Singh explained that many families “live dual lives”, in which family members work in the city to save money for a life back in their village. This dynamic of living across two locations is often referred to as “translocality”.
For example, Singh shared the story of residents from the Indian village of Kolar, who travel more than 100km to and from Bangalore for work every day, or else live there in informal settlements.
These workers send the money they earn back home, where it is often used to dig bore wells to access water. However, Singh warned that climate change and poor water management mean these wells often fail year after year, trapping people in this cycle of travelling to Bangalore to earn more money.
Singh also stressed the prevalence of rural-to-urban migration. She cited UN estimates (that do not explicitly include climate-driven migration), which find that around 2.5 billion people are expected to migrate from rural to urban areas by 2050. It adds that 90% of the change occurring in Africa and Asia.
Singh added:
“Half of the world’s population now lives in the cities…A lot of the battles of climate adaptation will be won and lost in cities.”
She noted that although migration “helps to manage risks”, it also has “significant financial, personal and social costs”.
Singh went on to discuss the global goal on adaptation – a set of 59 indicators to measure global progress on adaptation. Singh said that “migration and mobility are completely invisible…and therefore completely overlooked” in the goals.
She concluded by discussing the importance of new narratives on climate change and migration, saying:
“It’s the narratives and stories we tell of this moment that can help us first acknowledge what is happening, help subvert misinformation and untruths, and really demand accountability.”
Cities and livelihoodsMigration from villages to cities was a central theme of the conference.
On day two of the conference, Dr Aromar Revi, founding director of the IIHS, told delegates that the “root cause of the climate emergency is maldevelopment” and emphasised the importance of pursuing adaptation, mitigation and development goals together.
Dr Aromar Revi, founding director of the IIHS, addressing conference attendees. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.He noted that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is currently working on a special report on climate change and cities and argued that “cities will play a decisive role in shaping global climate futures”.
He continued:
“Cities concentrate opportunities, but they also concentrate poverty, inequality and risk. And that’s something that we really don’t know how to understand, especially in a changing climate.”
Throughout the conference, many of the delegates presented nuanced stories of rural-to-urban migration from individual communities. These case studies highlighted the complex, interlinking factors that drive a person’s decision to move and the wide range of outcomes.
Dr Aysha Jennath from the IIHS presented the results from her research, which unpacks the experiences of migrants who have moved from rural to urban areas, for a range of reasons including the changing climate and for better livelihoods.
Jennath and her colleagues interviewed thousands of migrants living in informal settlements, or working in informal jobs, in large cities in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. The researchers’ questions aimed to understand the migrants’ “wellbeing, adaptive capacity and precarity”.
Overall, Jennath found that migrants in large cities are vulnerable to poor housing, unsafe working conditions and a lack of basic social services.
Dr Binaya Pasakhala and Dr Sabarnee Tuladhar from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, presented initial results from the Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) project, in which researchers interviewed households across Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal about migration patterns.
They conducted hundreds of surveys to identify how households are adapting to the changing climate and grouped responses into a series of “pathways” describing the impacts of rural-to-urban migration on their livelihoods.
Dr Binaya Pasakhala and Dr Sabarnee Tuladhar from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development and Halvard Buhaug Peace Research Institute Oslo answering questions in a panel discussion. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.For example, Tuladhar noted that in Bhutan, there is a huge emphasis on education, which has “changed the aspirations of the community – especially the youth”. This drives “huge depopulation” from rural areas as young, educated people migrate to urban areas or internationally, she said.
This mass movement into the cities provides opportunities for young people. It also provides money for the families back home – a type of finance known as remittances.
However, it also “weakened resilience” in the villages through “gungtong” – a phrase which translates literally to “empty houses”.
However, they also described the case of Nepal’s Baragon mountain community, where remittances from people who moved to urban centres has allowed communities in the villages to shift livelihoods away from subsidence farming towards commercialised farming and tourism. In this case, “migration has actually strengthened the resilience of the community”, Tuladhar said.
Prof Nitya Rao is a researcher in gender and development at the University of East Anglia (UEA), also presented research funded by CLARE.
She told the conference that when men are forced to leave for work, due to a lack of other options, a lot of their earnings go towards “survival” and less is saved. On the other hand, “mixed migration” – such as the movement of a father and son – is often “aspirational”. It typically yields higher remittances and improves adaptive capacity back home, according to Rao.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Rao argued that in order to “make migration a case of adaptation and not just survival in the short term”, destination cities need to do more to welcome migrants.
Prof Nitya Rao addressing conference attendees. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.Dr Maria Franco Gavonel, a lecturer at the University of York and Prof Mumuni Abu, a senior lecturer from the University of Ghana, explored the concept of “social tipping points” in migration decision-making.
They suggested that as a drought intensifies, there may be a threshold at which households decide to leave. The authors compared drought indices to immigration patterns across communities in Ghana, Mali, Kenya and Ethiopia, but did not find evidence of a social tipping point.
This could be because households anticipate severe droughts and leave before they hit, the speakers suggested. They also noted that there are many government-led policy responses to drought that could affect a household’s decision to stay or leave.
For example, Kenya has a livestock-insurance policy to help families who lose animals during drought. Similarly the African Union uses satellite data to assess the severity of droughts and provide compensation to affected households.
In the final session of the conference, Dr Kasia Paprocki, an associate professor of environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, provided a counterpoint to the idea that the vast majority of villagers want to abandon farming and move to the city.
She argued that people are often displaced from rural communities and unable to live farming lifestyles, even if they want to, adding:
“I have found that agrarian dispossession is being intensified through development interventions that are today being referred to as climate change adaptation.”
She argued for the need to “reorganise economies” to enable people to stay “if they would like to”, adding:
“Climate change adaptation and climate migration without meaningful agrarian reform will not produce climate justice.”
Immobility and relocationMovement from rural to urban areas was not the only migration pattern discussed in the conference. Experts also discussed movement patterns including planned relocation and immobility.
The graphic below – adapted from the 2021 Groundswell report and originally published in Carbon Brief’s 2024 explainer on climate-driven migration – shows different categories of mobility and immobility due to climate change.
Different categories of human mobility and immobility due to climate change. Source: Adapted from the Groundswell report (2021).Dr Roman Hoffmann from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis’s migration and sustainable development research group opened a session on “immobility” by presenting a way of defining and measuring the phenomenon.
He told Carbon Brief that immobility is “basically the absence of movement”, adding:
“The are different types of immobility. We have voluntary and involuntary immobility – and sometimes these different forms are not so clearly distinguishable, but there’s more sort of a continuum. Basically, the question is whether people are able to realise their aspirations to move or to stay.”
In his talk, Hoffman noted that media narratives around migration often focus on large movements of people, while the topic of immobility “falls between the cracks”.
Immobility is often seen as a problem experienced by the poorest and most vulnerable members of society – for example, because people cannot find or afford the resources they need, such as food or transportation, because they are not healthy enough to move or because they do not have the social network they require to make such a big change.
However, Dr Joyce Soo from the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies, explained that there are also instances when “wealth enables immobility”.
Soo explained that in coastal regions of Sweden that are exposed to extreme events, many residents there choose to stay, as there is “strong trust in government protection”, such as coastal defences. She explained that in this instance “immobility is linked to identity and status”.
A separate session at the conference focused on planned relocation – the organised movement of a group of people away from a site that is highly vulnerable to climate extremes.
Dr Ricardo Safra de Campos, a senior lecturer in human geography at the University of Exeter, told the delegates that planned relocation is “arguably the most controversial aspect of mobility as a response to climate change” and is usually implemented when “all other forms of in-situ adaptation have failed”.
Safra de Campos and Nihal Ranjit, a senior research associate at IIHS, worked with a team of researchers to interview people who underwent planned relocation programmes in India and Bangladesh.
They told delegates that planned relocation is often implemented when people feel unsafe – for example due to climate extremes – resulting in an “erosion of habitability”.
However, Ranjit explained “safety alone doesn’t make relocation successful”. He argued that the most important aspect of planned relocation is to ensure that migrants do not lose their livelihoods.
He presented the example of Ramayapatnam – a fishing village in India where houses were slowly being lost to coastal erosion. Ranjit explained that a planned relocation programme was set up to move people away from the coast, but that many people refused to move, as doing so would mean losing their only means of earning money.
He also noted the many Indian citizens hold a deep mistrust of the government and question the authorities’ intentions.
Relocation must be “rights-based, participatory, livelihood-centred and attentive to culture, community and long-term wellbeing”, Ranjit said.
Meanwhile, Dr Annah Pigott-McKellar, a human geographer at the Queensland University of Technology, compared two case studies of relocation in Australia.
When devastating flash floods hit Queensland in January 2011, a relocation programme led by the local government was set up to move people. The first houses were built within a year, and people were moved in “extremely fast”, Pigott-McKellar said. She explained that the goal was to keep the town together and “keep some level of social continuity”.
Conference attendees asking questions to the panel. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.Conversely, when northern New South Wales faced severe flooding in 2022, the response was slow, according to Pigott-McKellar. She explained that different members of the community were offered varying levels of assistance by the state. For example, some households offered buybacks for their lost properties, while others were not.
The result was a “fragmented and dispersed mobility pathway” that saw the community split up and mistrust in the government grow.
Pigott-McKellar emphasised the importance of follow-through and continuity in relocation, stating:
“Relocation isn’t a moment in time. It is a process that unfolds over months or years”.
Legal pathwaysMost human migration happens within borders. However, conference delegates also discussed cases in which people move to other countries, with a focus on the possible legal pathways.
Prof Jon Barnett, professor in the school of geography, Earth and atmospheric sciences at the University of Melbourne, explained migration patterns in the south Pacific islands.
He told delegates that climate change is causing “significant social impacts” across the islands, adding:
“While we can’t say that climate change is a major factor in migration decisions…there is a “fingerprint of climate change in [all] migration decisions.”
Barnett outlined legal migration routes for Pacific islanders, such as Fiji’s climate relocation trust fund, which has already had more than 2,000 requests, or seasonal worker schemes to New Zealand, which have already issued 137,000 visas.
However, he noted that there is a “massive burden” for the women who stay on the Pacific islands when their husbands leave. He explained that not only do women substitute for the labour of the men, but climate change can also amplify their workload by making farming more difficult and illnesses more widespread.
He concluded:
“Migration cannot be the only adaptation strategy we offer to the Pacific Islands. It’s got to be one strategy in the portfolio.”
Speaking separately to Carbon Brief, he said:
“As climate change amplifies pressures on people’s livelihoods, we may end up with a whole series of transnational populations that are kind of constantly in churn – where they’re not just living on the island, but also in Australia, New Zealand, the US.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing, I think, so long as people still have a right to return to their islands and can do so – and are making informed choices…to manage their climate risk.”
Demographer Prof Raya Muttarak, from the University of Bologna, told delegates that Italy is the only EU country with explicit legislation for climate-related protection.
This six-month residence permit was introduced in 2018, for people who are found to have faced a “contingent and exceptional calamity”. However, she noted that there are flaws in the evidence base for making these claims, which can make it difficult for people to obtain the permits.
Changing narrativesMany speakers discussed the framing of climate change and migration in their talks. There was also a workshop on how to develop and promote “new narratives” around migration as an adaptation response to a changing climate on the first day of the conference.
Workshop on “new narratives”. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.Dr Reetika Subramanian, a senior research associate at UEA who helped to organise the conference, told Carbon Brief that many media narratives around migration are “alarmist” and “crisis-based”, with a focus on people from poorer countries illegally entering wealthier countries.
However, explained that the conference convenors wanted to begin work on developing a new framing for migration – both in response to climate change and more generally – focusing on its “adaptive aspects”.
Dr Benoy Peter, the executive director of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development, told Carbon Brief that “far right” media and politics often “leverage” migration to present a negative framing.
However, he said that he sees migration as a “solution”, describing it as the “fastest way for intergenerational upward social mobility for people from socially and economically disadvantaged populations”.
Prof Kerilyn Schewel, assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Carbon Brief that the migration community has “moved beyond a ‘push factor’ narrative – that climate change is coming and uprooting communities – to a more nuanced perspective that recognises that people are already moving for all kinds of reasons”.
She said the new “research frontier” is “seeing how environmental factors intersect with these other social or developmental outcomes”, such as education.
Liby Johnson, the executive director of development organisation Gram Vikas, told the conference his reason for hope:
Attendees of the “mobility in adaptation to climate change” conference. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.“Communities are figuring this out. They are not rejecting mobility – they are asking for mobility that is safer, fairer and more dignified. Communities affected by climate uncertainty are not simply enduring crises – they are actively using mobility to diversify risk, protect dignity and build better futures.”
Revi, from the IIHS, told Carbon Brief:
“The future of mobility is much more certain than the climate futures are. People have been mobile for a very long time. That’s been an important part of the transformation of societies and economies for centuries…Mobility is part of the solution. It is not the full solution, but it’s part of the solution. People are voting with their feet and with their aspirations to make a change.”
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Guest posts
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Guest post: How CMIP7 will shape the next wave of climate science
Hundreds of scientists in dozens of institutions are embarking on the next phase of the world’s largest coordinated climate-modelling effort.
Climate-modelling groups use supercomputers to run climate models that simulate the physics, chemistry and biology of the Earth’s atmosphere, land and oceans.
These models play a crucial role in helping scientists understand how the climate is responding as greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere.
For four decades, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) has guided the work of the climate-modelling community by providing a framework that allows for millions of results to be collected together and compared.
The resulting projections are used extensively in climate science and policy and underpin the landmark reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Now, the seventh phase of CMIP – CMIP7 – is underway, with more than 30 climate-modelling centres expected to contribute more than five million gigabytes of data – so much that downloading it using a fast internet connection would take two and a half years.
Here, we look at what is new for CMIP7, including its model experiments, updated emissions scenarios and “assessment fast track” process.
What is CMIP?Around the world, climate models are developed by different institutions and groups, known as modelling centres.
Each model is built differently and, therefore, produces slightly different results.
To better understand these differences, CMIP coordinates a common set of climate-model experiments.
These are simulations that use the same inputs and conditions, allowing scientists to compare the results and see where models agree or differ.
The figure below shows the countries that have either produced or published CMIP simulations.
Countries that have contributed modelling or data infrastructure for CMIP. Credit: CMIPDuring this time, scientists use new and improved models to run experiments from previous CMIP phases for consistency, as well as new experiments to investigate fresh scientific questions.
These simulations produce a trove of data, in the form of variables – such as temperature, rainfall, winds, sea ice extent and ocean currents. This information helps scientists study past, present and future climate change.
As scientific understanding and technical capabilities improve, models are refined. As a result, each CMIP phase incorporates higher spatial resolutions, larger ensembles, improved representations of key processes and more efficient model designs.
CMIP7 objectivesEach CMIP phase has an “experimental design” that outlines which climate-model experiments should be run and their technical specifications, including the time period the models should simulate.
The CMIP7 experimental design has several components.
As in CMIP6, for a modelling centre to contribute, they are asked to produce a suite of experiments that maintain continuity across past and future CMIP phases.
This suite of experiments is known as the “diagnostic, evaluation and characterisation of klima” (DECK) and is used to understand how their model “behaves” under simple, standard conditions. These experiments are designed and requested directly by CMIP’s scientific governing panel.
Alongside the DECK, CMIP also incorporates experiments developed by model intercomparison projects (MIPs) run by different research communities. For example, experiments exploring what the climate could look like under different levels of emissions or those that explore how sea ice might have changed between the last two ice-ages.
Currently, CMIP is working with 40 MIPs. These groups investigate specific scientific questions at their own pace, rather than on timelines prescribed by CMIP.
Running a large number of simulations can take modelling centres a long time. To speed up the process, CMIP7 has launched the “assessment fast track”.
This is a small subset of CMIP7 experiments, drawn from past and present community MIPs, identified through community consultation as being critical for scientific and policy assessments.
Data from the assessment fast track will be used in the reports that will together form the seventh assessment (AR7) of the IPCC.
It will also be used as an input by other groups that create climate information, including organisations involved in regional downscaling and modelling climate impacts and ice-sheet changes.
The figure below shows the different components of CMIP7. It shows how a subset of CMIP7 experiments will be delivered on an accelerated timeline, while the majority of experiments will be led by MIPs.
The different components of CMIP7. Credit: CMIP CMIP7 experimentsThere are three categories of experiments set to take place in CMIP7:
- Historical experiments, which are designed to improve scientific understanding of past climates. Model runs exploring the recent historical period also allow scientists to evaluate the performance of models by checking how well they replicate real-world observations.
- Prediction and projection experiments, which allow scientists to analyse what different climates could look like under varying levels of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as near-term (10-year) prediction experiments.
- Process understanding experiments, which are designed to better understand specific processes and isolate cause-and-effect relationships. For example, a set of experiments might change the emissions of one greenhouse gas at a time to see how much each pollutant contributes to warming or cooling the climate.
Modelling centres typically produce and publish their data for the historical and projection experiments first.
CMIP expects the first datasets to be available by this summer, with broader publication recommended by the end of the year, in time to be assessed by IPCC AR7 authors.
Drafting of the reports of AR7 is currently underway. However, countries are yet to agree on the timeline for when they will be published. This presents a challenge for the climate-modelling community, given the difficulties of working with a moving deadline.
(For more on the ongoing standoff between countries around the timing of publication of the reports, read Carbon Brief’s explainer.)
New emissions scenariosScientists use emissions scenarios to simulate the future climate according to how global energy systems and land use might change over the next century.
Crucially, these scenarios – also known as “pathways” – are not forecasts or predictions of the future.
The group tasked with designing the scenarios for CMIP phases, as well as producing the “input files” for climate models, is the “scenario model intercomparison project”, or ScenarioMIP.
In a new paper, the group has set out the new set of scenarios for CMIP7:
- High (H): Emissions grow to as high as deemed plausibly possible, consistent with a rollback of current climate policies. This scenario will result in strong warming.
- High-to-low (HL): Emissions rise as in the high scenario at first, but are cut sharply in the second half of the century to reach net-zero by 2100.
- Medium (M): Emissions consistent with current policies, frozen as of 2025, leading to a moderate level of warming.
- Medium-to-low (ML): Emissions are slowly reduced, eventually reaching net-zero emissions by the end of the century.
- Low (L): Emissions consistent with likely keeping warming below 2C and not returning to 1.5C before the end of the century.
- Very low (VL): Emissions are cut to keep temperatures “as low as plausible”, according to the paper. This scenario limits warming to close to 1.5C by the end of the century, with limited overshoot beforehand.
- Low-to-negative (LN): Emissions fall slightly slower than in the VL scenario, with temperatures just rising above 1.5C. Emissions then rapidly drop to negative to bring warming back down.
The figures below show the emissions (left) and the estimated global temperature changes (right) under the seven new scenarios for CMIP7, from the low-to-negative emissions scenario (turquoise) to a high-emissions scenario (brown).
The greenhouse gas emissions for each of the CMIP7 climate scenarios (left) and the associated estimated average temperature change from 1850-1900 (right) using the FaIR emulator. Source: Adapted from Van Vuuren et al. (2026)As a set, the ScenarioMIP scenarios “cover plausible outcomes ranging from a high level of climate change (in the case of policy failure) to low levels of climate change resulting from stringent policies”, the paper says.
Compared to the scenarios in CMIP6, the range in future emissions they cover is now narrower, the authors say:
“On the high-end of the range, the CMIP6 high emission levels (quantified by SSP5-8.5) have become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emission trends…At the low end, many CMIP6 emission trajectories have become inconsistent with observed trends during the 2020-30 period.”
Put simply, progress on climate policies and cheaper renewable technologies means that scenarios of very high emissions have now been ruled out.
However, this progress has not been sufficient to keep society on track for the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C goal. The paper notes that, “at this point of time, some overshoot of the 1.5C seems unavoidable”.
[The change to the high end of the scenarios has sparked misleading commentary in the media and on social media – even from US president Donald Trump. A Carbon Brief factcheck unpacks the debate.]
Also notable in the new scenarios is the “low-to-negative” pathway, which has the explicit feature of emissions becoming “net-negative”. In other words, through carbon dioxide removal (CDR) techniques, society reaches the point at which more carbon is being taken out of the atmosphere than is being added through greenhouse gas emissions.
Reaching net-negative emissions is fundamental to “overshoot scenarios”, where global warming passes a target and then is brought back down by large-scale CDR.
Overshoot scenarios allow scientists and policymakers to investigate the impacts of a delay to emissions reductions and better understand how the world might respond to passing a warming target. This includes the question of whether some impacts of climate change, such as ice sheet melt, are reversible.
CMIP has encouraged modelling centres to run simulations using the “high” and “very low” scenarios first to ensure downstream users of the data – including groups working on regional climate projections (CORDEX), climate impacts modelling (ISIMIP) and ice-sheet modelling (ISMIP) – have enough time to produce their data for IPCC reports.
These two scenarios were selected as they sit at opposite ends of the spectrum of climate outcomes. The high scenario will demonstrate how models behave under high emissions, while the very low scenario will demonstrate how models behave when emissions are rapidly reduced.
CMIP has recommended that modelling centres then run the “medium” and “high-to-low” scenarios. The remaining scenarios should then follow and no official recommendation has been made yet on their production order.
Other new featuresIn addition to the assessment fast track and new scenarios, CMIP7 has a number of other new developments.
Updated data for simulationsClimate models use input datasets to define the set of external drivers – or “forcings” – that have caused the global warming observed so far. These drivers include greenhouse gases, changes to incoming solar radiation and volcanic eruptions.
CMIP recommends modelling groups use the same input datasets, as this makes it easier to compare model results.
In CMIP7, the historical forcing datasets available for modelling groups to use have been improved to better represent real-world changes and extended closer to the present day. The historical simulations will be able to simulate the past climate from 1850 through to the end of 2021, whereas CMIP6 only simulated the past climate through to 2014.
CMIP is also planning to extend these historical datasets through to 2025 and maybe further throughout the course of CMIP7.
Emissions-driven simulationsCMIP7 introduces a new focus on CO2 emissions-driven simulations, providing a more realistic representation of how the climate responds to changes in emissions.
In older generations of climate models, atmospheric levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gas concentrations have been needed as an input to the model. These levels would be produced by running scenarios of CO2 emissions through separate carbon cycle models. The resulting climate-model runs were known as “concentration-driven simulations”.
However, many of the latest generation of models are now able to run in “emissions-driven mode”. This means that they receive CO2 emissions as an input and the model itself simulates the carbon cycle and the resulting levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
This development is important, as climate policies are typically defined in terms of emissions, rather than overall atmospheric concentrations.
This new development in modelling will enable a more realistic representation of the carbon cycle and a better understanding of how it might change under different levels of warming.
Enhanced model documentation and evaluationAll CMIP7 models will be required to supply standardised model documentation that ensures consistency across model descriptions and makes it easier for end users to understand the data.
Additionally, CMIP scientists have developed a new open-access tool that dramatically speeds up the evaluation of climate models.
This “rapid evaluation framework” allows researchers to compare model outputs with real-world observations, providing immediate insight into model performance.
.shadeBg{ background: rgba(0,0,0,0.2); }Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts
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New coal plants hit ‘10-year’ global high in 2025 – but power output still fell
The number of new coal-fired power plants built around the world hit a “10-year high” in 2025, even as the global coal fleet generated less electricity, amid a “widening disconnect” in the sector.
That is according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM), which finds that the world added nearly 100 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-power capacity in 2025, the equivalent of roughly 100 large coal plants.
It adds that 95% of the new coal plants were built in India and China.
Yet GEM says that the amount of electricity generated with coal fell by 0.6% in 2025 – with sharp drops in both China and India – as the fuel was displaced by record wind and solar output, among other factors.
The report notes that there have been previous dips in output from coal power and there could still be ups – as well as downs – in the near term.
For example, nearly 70% of the coal-fired units scheduled to retire globally in 2025 did not do so, due to postponements triggered by the 2022 energy crisis and policy shifts in the US.
However, GEM says that the underlying dynamics for coal power have now fundamentally shifted, as the cost of renewables has fallen and low usage hits coal profitability.
China and India dominate growthIn 2025, coal-capacity growth hit a 10-year high, with 97 gigawatts (GW) of new power plants being added, according to GEM.
(Capacity refers to the potential maximum power output, as measured in GW, whereas generation refers to power actually generated by the assets over a period of time, measured in gigawatt hours, GWh.)
This is the highest level since 2015 when 107GW began operating, as shown in the chart below. This makes 2025 the second-highest level of additions on record.
Coal-fired power capacity that began operation each year from 2000 to 2025, GW. Source: Global Energy Monitor.The majority of this growth came from China and India, which added 78GW and 10GW, respectively, against 9GW from all other countries.
Yet GEM points out that, even as coal capacity in China grew by 6%, the output from coal-fired power plants actually fell 1.2%. This means that each power plant would have been running less often, eroding its profitability. Similarly, capacity in India grew by 3.8%, while generation fell by 2.9%.
China and India had accounted for 87% of new coal-power capacity that came into operation in the first half of 2025. The shift up to 95% in the year as a whole highlights how increasingly just those two countries dominate the sector, GEM says.
Christine Shearer, project manager of GEM’s global coal plant tracker, said in a statement:
“In 2025, the world built more coal and used it less. Development has grown more concentrated, too – 95% of coal plant construction is now in China and India, and even they are building solar and wind fast enough to displace it.”
Both China and India saw solar and wind meet most or all of the growth in electricity demand last year.
Analysis for Carbon Brief last year showed that, in the first six months of 2025 alone, a record 212GW of solar was added in China, helping to make it the nation’s single-largest source of clean-power generation, for example.
However, the country continues to propose new coal plants. In 2025, a record 162GW of capacity was newly proposed for development or reactivated, according to GEM. This brought the overall capacity under development in the country to more than 500GW.
China’s 15th “five-year plan”, covering 2026-2030, had pledged to “promote the peaking” of coal use, while a more recent pair of policies introduced stricter controls on local governments’ coal use.
For its part, in India some 28GW of new coal capacity was newly proposed or reactivated last year, bringing the total under development to 107.3GW and under-construction capacity to 23.5GW.
The Indian government is planning to complete 85GW of new coal capacity in the next seven years, even as clean-energy expansion reaches levels that could cover all of the growth in electricity demand.
Outside of China and India, GEM says that just 32 countries have new coal plants under construction or under development, down from 38 in 2024.
Countries that have dropped plans for new coal in 2025 include South Korea, Brazil and Honduras, it says. GEM notes that the latter two mean that Latin America is now free from any new coal-power proposals.
This means that both electricity generation from coal and the construction of new coal-fired power plants are increasingly concentrated in just a few countries, as the chart below shows.
Top 10 countries for total operating coal power-plant capacity (left) and for newly added capacity (right), GW. Source: Global Energy Monitor.Indonesia’s coal fleet grew by 7% in 2025 to 61GW, with a quarter of the new capacity tied to nickel and aluminium processing, according to GEM.
Turkey – which is gearing up to host the COP31 international climate summit in November – has just one coal-plant proposal remaining, down from 70 in 2015.
The amount of new coal capacity that started to operate in south-east Asia fell for the third year in a row in 2025, according to GEM.
Countries in south Asia that rely on imported energy are increasingly looking to other technologies to protect themselves from fossil-fuel shocks, such as Pakistan, which is rapidly deploying solar, states the GEM report.
In Africa, plans for new coal capacity are concentrated in Zimbabwe and Zambia, the report shows, with the two countries accounting for two-thirds of planned development in the region.
‘Persistence of policies’While new coal plants are still being built and even more are under development, GEM notes that the global electricity system is undergoing rapid changes.
Crucially, the growth of cheap renewable energy means that new coal plants do not automatically translate into higher electricity generation from coal.
Without rising output from coal power, building new plants simply results in the coal fleet running less often, further eroding its economics relative to wind and solar power.
Indeed, GEM notes that electricity generation from coal fell globally in 2025. Moreover, a recent report by thinktank Ember found that renewable energy overtook coal in 2025 to become the world’s largest source of electricity.
GEM notes that coal generation may fluctuate in the near term, in particular due to potential increases in demand driven by higher gas prices.
It adds that gas price shocks, such as the one triggered by the Iran war, can cause temporary reversals in the longer-term shift away from coal.
According to Carbon Brief analysis, at least eight countries announced plans to either increase their coal use or review plans to transition away from coal in the first month of the Iran war. However, a much-discussed “return to coal” is expected to be limited.
GEM’s report highlights that global fossil-fuel shocks can have an impact on the phase out of coal capacity over several years.
In the EU, for example, 69% of planned retirements did not take place in 2025, due to postponements that began in the 2022-23 energy crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the report. Countries across the bloc chose to retain their coal capacity amid gas supply disruptions and concerns about energy security.
Yet coal-fired power generation in the bloc is now more than 40% below 2022 levels. Again, this highlights that coal capacity does not necessarily translate into electricity generation from coal, with its associated CO2 emissions.
Overall, GEM notes that “repeated exposure to fossil-fuel price volatility is as likely to accelerate the shift toward clean energy as it is to delay it”.
GEM’s Shearer says in a statement:
“The central challenge heading into 2026 is not the availability of alternatives, but the persistence of policies that treat coal as necessary even as power systems move increasingly beyond it.”
In the US, 59% of planned retirements in 2025 did not happen, according to GEM. This was due to government intervention to keep ageing coal plants online.
Five coal-power plants have been told to remain online through federal “emergency” orders, for example, even as the coal fleet continues to face declining competitiveness.
Keeping these plants online has cost hundreds of millions of dollars and helped drive an annual increase in the average US household electricity prices of 7%, according to GEM.
Despite such measures, Trump has overseen a larger fall in coal-fired power capacity than any other US president, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Meanwhile, according to new figures from the US Energy Information Administration, solar and wind both set new records for energy production in 2025.
Despite challenges with policy and wider fossil-fuel impacts, the underlying dynamic has shifted, says GEM, as “clean energy becomes more competitive and widely deployed” around the world.
It adds that this raises the prospect of “a more sustained decoupling between coal-capacity growth and generation, particularly if clean-energy deployment continues at current rates”.
Analysis: Trump has overseen larger coal decline than any other US president
Coal
|Analysis: Coal power drops in China and India for first time in 52 years after clean-energy records
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|IEA: Declining coal demand in China set to outweigh Trump’s pro-coal policies
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|Guest post: China and India account for 87% of new coal-power capacity so far in 2025
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Cropped 20 May 2026: Deforestation roadmap | Melanesian Ocean Summit | Returning pet parrots to the wild
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.
COP30 ROADMAP: Brazil’s global roadmap away from deforestation will involve countries producing their own voluntary pathways to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030, according to a first outline covered by Climate Home News. At the COP30 climate talks in Belém last year, some 93 countries called for a deforestation “roadmap” to be part of the summit’s formal outcomes. Despite this, countries failed to agree to one – leading host nation Brazil to promise to bring forward a voluntary roadmap as a compromise.
FOREST FORUM: Speaking at the UN Forum on Forests earlier this month, Juliano Assunção, an advisor to the COP30 presidency on deforestation, presented a first outline of the roadmap, said Climate Home News. According to the publication, Assunção said the roadmap “will not prescribe a single model”, but would instead invite countries to convert their pledges “into forest roadmaps grounded on regional and national diagnosis”. Elsewhere at the forum, Indonesia announced carbon-offsetting plans involving the restoration of 12m hectares of degraded land, said Reuters.
GOALS REPORT: Amid the talks, the UN published its latest assessment on achieving six global forest goals for 2017-30, concluding that “progress is evident, but insufficient”. Down to Earth reported that, according to the report, the world remains off track on two of the “key” targets: ending deforestation and eliminating extreme poverty among forest-dependent populations. Sustainability magazine reported that the goals set a target of increasing global forest area by 3% by 2030, but that, in reality, forest area has declined by more than 40m hectares since 2015.
Melanesian Ocean SummitSEA SOLIDARITY: The leaders of Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu signed a declaration to establish the Melanesian Ocean Corridor of Reserves, reported the Pacific Islands News Association. The corridor will “establish joint border governance, enforcement and marine science frameworks” across five Pacific nations and territories, said the outlet. Vanuatu’s prime minister, Jotham Napat, told the Melanesian Ocean Summit that the corridor “reminds us that our solidarity, not the legacy of colonial rule, determines our future”, according to Vanuatu’s Daily Post.
SEA SOVEREIGNTY: Part of the Melanesian corridor is a new marine protected area the size of the UK, announced by Papua New Guinea at the summit, said Oceanographic magazine. The new MPA will “prohibit all fishing within its boundaries”, reported the outlet. Meanwhile, Tuvalu’s Post Courier reported that the country is “currently developing its first-ever national-security policy, which will place maritime conservation and management at the absolute centre of the country’s strategic architecture”. Prime minister Feleti Teo stated: “The ocean is our sovereignty.”
CONSIDER THE OCEAN: In a comment article in the journal npj Ocean Sustainability, Dr Carlos García-Soto from the Spanish National Research Council wrote that there is a “structural weakness” in UN climate processes. He noted that the final decision text from COP30 “omitted the ocean entirely”, despite the summit “deliver[ing] the strongest ocean-related initiatives ever presented at a UN climate conference”. García-Soto also outlined five key priorities for integrating ocean considerations into climate governance.
News and views- CANADA OWN GOAL: The Canadian government has no plans to enshrine into law commitments meant to ensure the nation meets its international nature goals, despite hosting the pivotal COP15 biodiversity summit less than four years ago, said CBC News.
- CREDIT CHANGE: Brazil’s national monetary council has postponed a regulation that would have blocked farms involved in deforestation from receiving rural credits, reported Folha de São Paulo. The change occurs “following pressure from agribusiness groups to relax the rules”, said the outlet, and means the requirement will now not take effect until January 2027.
- SAND CRISIS: A growing global appetite for sand is outstripping demand and threatening ecosystems, according to a new UN report covered by Reuters.
- LAOS DAMMED: A natural world heritage site in northern Laos is being put at risk by a $3.5bn dam project, reported Nikkei Asia.
- RAPID RESPONSE: The European Commission released its fertiliser action plan to “provide rapid support to farmers…and prevent rising food prices” amid the conflict in the Middle East, said Agenzia Nova.
- MARSH REVIVAL: Rising water levels are “beginning to revive” southern Iraq’s Cibayish marshes following a years-long drought and “drawing buffalo herders and fishermen back to areas once abandoned”, said Reuters. The country’s water ministry was able to “release growing volumes” of water from reservoirs following heavy winter rains, added the newswire.
This week, Carbon Brief visits a conservation project working to return former pet parrots to the wild in Colombia.
Beautiful feathers. The playfulness and intellect of a small child. On occasion, the ability to partake in some pleasant conversation.
Parrots have captured the attention of humans for centuries. But their unique qualities have also contributed to their decline in the wild.
Some 16m parrots were moved across borders to be sold as pets over 1975-2016, according to one study, making them the most internationally traded bird in the world.
In Colombia, the world’s most biodiverse country by area, the introduction of tougher laws in 2016 means keeping a wild animal as a pet is now viewed as a “crime against the environment”, punishable with monetary fines.
These stricter rules led to greater numbers of wild parrots being seized by the police and more people giving up their birds voluntarily.
But this clampdown created a new conundrum: What will the Colombian authorities do with their growing population of these, formerly pet, parrots?
A charity called Fundación Loros – “Parrot Foundation” in English – hopes to have the answer.
Parrot rehabilitationThe foundation is based on 33 hectares of tropical dry forest in Bolívar – around a 40-minute car ride from the popular tourist city of Cartagena on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
The deafening screeches of parrots when entering through the site’s gates were impossible to ignore.
Inside, foundation guide Corina walked Carbon Brief through the various stages of pet parrot rehabilitation.
Former pet parrots that are released directly into the wild are unlikely to survive. This is because they often lack the necessary skills, such as how to find food or stay away from predators, including monkeys and coatis.
Parrots arriving at the foundation follow a seven-stage process.
First, they are checked over by a vet and given a tag, so they can be continuously monitored.
Following this, they are kept in a large enclosure and slowly reintroduced to the types of food they might encounter in the wild, including wild fruits and nuts.
After this, they undergo “flight training” – many of the parrots will have been kept in a small cage and never learned how to travel long distances. This involves workers encouraging the birds to fly greater distances in exchange for rewards.
They also join other birds for “flock cohesion” lessons. In the wild, parrots are highly social animals who rely on their group to survive and raise chicks.
A scarlet macaw eats a small mango at its release site in Bolívar, Colombia. Credit: Daisy DunneFollowing these steps, parrots are taken deeper into the foundation’s forest reserve – away from loggers and poachers.
There, they spend some time in an enclosure getting acquainted with their new surroundings.
After this, the door to the cage is opened – allowing them to fly free, but return for shelter and food if they need. Eventually, the birds settle back into the wild.
Waiting listIn addition to their parrot rehabilitation programme, the charity built a series of nest boxes and installed them high in the tree canopy across the reserve.
Their continuous monitoring of the birds has shown that many of the former pets have started raising wild chicks.
The work is hugely rewarding, said Corina, but the charity currently has a waiting list that is “months long”, given the growing number of wild animals needing rehabilitation across Colombia.
Despite helping the authorities with their wild animal problem, the charity largely relies on private donations to continue, she said. The hope is to develop an eco-tourism model to make more revenue in the future, she added.
Watch, read, listenCARBON CONSULTATIONS: The Diplomat explored whether local residents were properly consulted on a carbon-offsetting programme in Cambodia.
FISH FIGHTS: The Ghanaian Times examined the tensions surrounding marine conservation in the country and how it is unduly burdening small-scale fisherfolk.
DELTA WORK: Mongabay reported on how the world’s “great deltas” are sinking, leading to the loss of a “global food system”.
LITHUANIA PEAT BOGS: The New York Times reported on Lithuanian efforts to restore peat bogs in order to “reinforce the border” and “lock away” carbon.
New science- Coastal marshes are encroaching on uplands “nearly twice as fast” on agricultural land as they are on forestland, suggesting that agricultural practices are “accelerat[ing] the impacts of saltwater intrusion” | Nature Sustainability
- Fungi that cause diseases in plants will approximately double in abundance around the Antarctic Peninsula by 2100 under a moderate emissions scenario | Global Change Biology
- Conserving Ethiopia’s protected areas currently involves managing “trade-offs between nature and people” that are “central to whether global biodiversity commitments can be delivered” | Nature Ecology and Evolution
- 20-22 May: Informal consultations of parties to the UN Fish Stocks Agreement | New York City
- 30 May-6 June: Meeting of the Global Environment Facility Assembly | Samarkand, Uzbekistan
- 31 May: Colombian presidential elections
- 8-18 June:Subsidiary body meetings of the UNFCCC | Bonn, Germany
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne and Orla Dwyer. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 20 May 2026: Deforestation roadmap | Melanesian Ocean Summit | Returning pet parrots to the wild appeared first on Carbon Brief.
CCC: Investing in ‘urgent’ UK adaptation action ‘cheaper than climate damages’
Investing in flood defences, air conditioning and other measures to protect the UK from climate change will provide “long-term savings” for the country, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC).
The government’s climate advisors have proposed a set of climate-adaptation actions that would require at least an extra £11bn per year in spending, largely from the private sector.
Most of this investment would go towards keeping buildings cool and protecting them from floods, as well as building reservoirs and supporting water-efficiency measures.
The committee says this is a “manageable level of investment” that will shave billions of pounds off climate change-driven damages that the UK will experience in the coming years.
Crucially, the CCC stresses that this approach would be “cheaper than facing the damages”.
This analysis comes from the CCC’s new “well-adapted UK” report, which sets out more than 100 actions that the committee says could help the UK prepare for global warming up to 2C above pre-industrial levels by 2050.
The CCC highlights 20 overarching objectives and a set of measurable targets that it says should be prioritised in the coming years, such as curbing deaths related to extreme heat.
This first-of-its-kind “solutions-focused” report will feed into the UK government’s upcoming fourth climate-change risk assessment, due in 2027, and inform its approach to climate adaptation.
Here, Carbon Brief provides an overview of the key messages in the 554-page report, including the actions highlighted by the CCC and the policy levers required to implement them.
- What is the ‘well-adapted UK’ report?
- What are the climate risks facing the UK?
- How much will it cost to prepare the UK for climate change?
- What measures does the CCC recommend?
The CCC’s new report on how to create a “well-adapted UK” sits alongside a legal process designed to ensure the country is prepared for the impacts of climate change.
It warns that the UK has not yet done enough to adapt to climate change and sets out priorities – as well as potential solutions – for the challenges ahead.
The CCC’s work stems from the Climate Change Act 2008, under which the UK government must publish a Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) every five years. This must set out the risks and opportunities the nation is facing due to climate change.
A key pillar of the act is the creation of the CCC, an independent body that provides advice on the climate-related risks facing the UK and how it should adapt.
The CCC has previously produced three technical reports to advise the government on adaptation. Today sees the publication of the fourth set of advice, officially known as the CCRA4-IA technical report. The “well-adapted UK” report sits alongside this.
(The CCC also makes more frequent assessments of adaptation strategies produced by England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland individually.)
This is the first time the CCC has produced “well-adapted UK”, which it describes as a “solution-focused report” providing suggested government actions to address adaptation needs.
Speaking during a press briefing ahead of the report launch, Baroness Brown, chair of the CCC’s adaptation committee, said:
“It’s a first for us, the first time we’ve produced a report of this sort.It forms part of our independent assessment for the fourth climate-change risk assessment and it contains our advice to government.
“It’s now nearly 20 years since the Climate Change Act was passed and, despite making very strong progress on reducing emissions since 2008, I think we all agree that we have done nothing like enough to address the increasing risk from the impacts of climate change to the UK today.”
The CCC report offers evidence to support action by individual UK governments, as well as other organisations focused on adaptation.
It highlights three priority areas as the UK prepares for 2C of warming by 2050: providing cooling to protect from heat; increasing flood preparedness; and improving water management.
The report says that deploying adaptation at scale around these priorities will help avoid loss of life, as well as disruption to people and the economy.
It also sets out climate risks, actions and enablers across 14 key systems, breaking the analysis down into sectors to allow for clear recommendations on what needs to be done and accountability for delivering progress.
However, the report notes that “climate risks do not simply sit in single systems. Many of the most dangerous risks will cascade across them.”
The CCC states that “adaptation cannot wait”, adding that the duty of the state to keep people safe and secure is being compromised by climate change. As such, it says adaptation needs the same level of focus and commitment as geopolitical and other threats.
The report says:
“Damage is already happening, which can be avoided. Taking action today is cheaper than taking action tomorrow. The main challenge is leadership, getting adaptation underway at sufficient scale and speed.”
Finally, the CCC states that adaptation cannot replace efforts to limit warming, but is instead an “essential complement” to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It describes adaptation action as “both necessary and achievable, but also urgent”.
What are the climate risks facing the UK?The UK is already facing increased threats of heatwaves, extreme rainfall and sea level rise due to human-driven burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, says the report.
Since 2000, the UK has experienced all 10 of its hottest years on record and temperatures passed 40C for the first time in 2022. There is a 50% likelihood of reaching those temperatures again in the next 12 years, says the CCC.
Warmer air can hold more moisture than colder air, with the result that these warmer temperatures have been accompanied by heavier and more intense rainfall in all seasons of the year across the UK.
Additionally, the UK has experienced about 200 millimetres of sea level rise since 1901, with this occurring at an accelerating rate over the last three decades, notes the CCC. The largest increases in sea levels have occurred on the country’s southern coast.
The level of risk facing the country in the future will be determined largely by the level of global emissions, states the report.
Under current emissions pathways, the world will reach around 2C of warming above pre-industrial temperatures by 2050, climbing to nearly 3C by the end of the century.
Lower warming levels are still possible, if countries strengthen their current climate policies and accelerate global emissions reductions. At the same time, scenarios involving even higher levels of warming “should be considered in long-term planning”, says the report.
The table below summarises potential changes to the UK’s climate hazards at 2C of global warming in 2050 and at 4C of global warming in 2100.
(function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();In addition to direct impacts on the UK, says the report, the country “cannot be isolated” from global climate risks, such as destructive extreme-weather events.
The report notes that risk is based on three components: hazard; exposure; and vulnerability.
Hazard refers to the physical event that can cause damage. Exposure refers to the presence of people or assets in the area that may be affected by a hazard. Vulnerability is how susceptible something or someone is to experiencing damage if it is exposed to a hazard, accounting for the ability to take adaptation measures.
Current vulnerability and exposure are both highly variable across the country, with marginalised groups likely to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. How these will change in the future is highly uncertain, it says.
How much will it cost to prepare the UK for climate change?The CCC estimates that delivering its package of adaptation actions will require additional investment of at least £11bn per year, shared between public and private sectors.
(The report notes that, given limits in available information, this is “likely to be an underestimate, but it gives a sense of the scale of investment needed”.)
Roughly a third of this investment will likely be needed for air conditioning and passive cooling measures, according to the committee. Another third will be required for flood defences and water conservation.
Overall, the CCC says around 36% of the expected investment is in areas “that have tended to be funded by the public sector”, while 41% will likely fall to the private sector. The remaining costs are “undetermined”.
The committee stresses that “acting now is cheaper than acting later” and that investing in adaptation is “cheaper than facing the damages” caused by climate change.
Climate-related damages are already costing the UK economy and could grow to around 1-5% of GDP by 2050 – roughly £60-260bn per year – under scenarios of around 2C global warming, according to the CCC.
(The CCC has previously suggested that cutting emissions to net-zero would require investments of £20-40bn per year, yielding savings of a similar magnitude.)
In this context, the £11bn a year “is a manageable level of investment for the UK economy” that will deliver “long-term savings for both public and private actors”, states the report.
CCC analysis of a new adaptation package covering heat and health, urban heat and water scarcity suggests that these measures alone could save up to £12bn a year in climate-damage costs by the 2050s. This can be seen in the chart below.
Potential for a package of additional adaptation measures (light blue) to reduce costs from climate-change impacts, £bn, compared to existing adaptation measures (dark blue). Source: CCC analysis.At a launch event, Baroness Brown expanded on the figures, noting that climate change is already costing up to 2% of GDP per year. She added that this figure amounts to £60bn, which could rise to £260bn (5% of GDP) by 2050 without action.
.cb-tweet{ width: 65%; box-shadow: 3px 3px 6px #d3d3d3; margin: auto; } .cb-tweet img{ border: solid 1.25px #333333; border-radius: 5px; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-tweet{ width:100%; } }The CCC stresses that many adaptation actions are “low-cost or low-regret”, highlighting numerous examples that show very favourable benefit-cost ratios. For example, flood resilience measures tend to produce benefits five-times greater than their costs.
In addition, 53 of the 120 adaptation actions for which costs were assessed provided additional “co-benefits”, such as the energy and water bill savings that can result from water-efficiency improvements.
While the CCC does not provide a comprehensive estimate of the financial impact of such co-benefits, it says they “strengthen the case for action”.
The report also emphasises that it makes financial sense to target adaptation measures at people or assets that are particularly vulnerable to and at-risk from climate impacts.
What measures does the CCC recommend?The CCC’s report sets out a range of climate risks and required adaptation actions across 14 “key systems”, including health, land and the economy as a whole.
As well as proposing more than 100 “actions”, the committee lays out the kind of policies that could be implemented to achieve them. For example, actions in the building sector might require changes to planning policy.
The report also sets out key “enablers” for adaptation in each of these key systems. Common enablers are adequate financial resources, better monitoring processes and improved public awareness of adaptation issues.
The CCC sets out 20 overarching objectives and 39 proposed targets to guide the UK’s adaptation progress out to 2050, which “set out a clear and measurable ambition for a well-adapted UK”. These objectives and targets can be seen in the table below.
(function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();The committee says its goals are “clearly measurable and time-bound” and will rely on actions being implemented – often cutting across different systems. For example, curbing deaths linked to extreme heat will rely on the construction of cooler buildings.
For each of the 14 key systems identified, the CCC says it has applied “10 principles for effective adaptation” in order to “inform meaningful recommendations to national government departments”.
Among other things, these principles include preparing for 2C of warming by 2050 and “considering” 4C of warming by 2100.
The following headings break down the key threats facing each of the key systems identified by the CCC – and the actions needed to prepare them for climate change.
HealthClimate change poses a direct threat to population health, with extreme heat linked to everything from increased threat of heart attacks to the spread of climate-sensitive infectious diseases.
At the same time, heatwaves and flooding can disrupt the normal functioning of the UK’s health and social-care system, which can also harm people’s health.
The CCC identifies the following “priority adaptation actions” to protect people from climate change, with a particular focus on minimising excess heat-related mortality and morbidity:
- Behavioural changes – supported by information services – to avoid health risks during hot weather;
- Public cooling spaces to protect vulnerable people during heat events;
- Visits by healthcare or community workers to high-risk people;
- Mental health treatment for people exposed to flooding;
- Surveillance and monitoring of climate hazards and climate-sensitive diseases;
- Early warning systems, including the expansion of heat alerts beyond England;
- Expanding natural areas that can provide shade and reduce the urban heat island effect;
- Maintaining “safe” water bodies that reduce breeding of endemic mosquitoes and harmful algal blooms.
The CCC also identifies priority actions to protect health and social-care facilities from extreme weather:
- Cooling measures in healthcare facilities, including retrofitting buildings with “passive cooling” measures and installing air conditioning;
- Flood defences and other protective measures, such as waterproofed electricals, at hospitals and care homes;
- Training for health professionals that focuses on climate-related health risks;
- Business continuity planning to manage staff absences during extreme-weather events;
- Occupational support to protect healthcare staff during extreme weather;
- Emergency scenario planning for climate-related emergencies.
Many of the required actions would fall to devolved governments and rely on public funding.
The CCC says the UK government could ensure facilities are built to cope with climate extremes by embedding adaptation in statutory health, building and environmental standards. It adds that there is also a need for education programmes to encourage behavioural change.
Crucially, the committee also highlights the need for sustained government funding for adaptation-specific measures. In total, the CCC says the known investment required to deliver adaptation in the health system could be around £0.7-1.7bn per year.
Built environment and communitiesClimate change presents numerous risks to the UK’s settlements, buildings and communities, according to the CCC.
The report notes that already, more than half of UK homes are at risk of overheating, 6.3m properties are located in flood-risk areas and extreme weather is causing millions of pounds of damage to properties every year.
Without additional adaptation measures by 2050, it says that the risk of overheating is projected to be 4.2 times higher and that 27% more homes are projected to be at risk of flooding and coastal erosion in England. In addition, the risk of subsidence in Great Britain will increase, with 11% of properties affected by the 2070s, as well as other impacts.
As such, the CCC has set out a series of recommended actions to ensure settlements, buildings and communities are fit-for-purpose and durable places to live and work:
- Building out catchment-scale flood defences, including a mix of engineering “hard” defences and natural defences;
- Expanding urban green infrastructure, for example, street trees, parks and waterways, to provide natural cooling and shade;
- Introducing more “sustainable drainage systems”, such as green roofs, permeable paving, rain gardens and others;
- Helping communities prepare for extreme-weather events;
- Build out nature-based solutions to manage changes from sea level rise and coastal erosion;
- Introducing cooling measures in buildings, including both active cooling – such as air conditioning – and passive cooling measures;
- Utilising government schemes, such as Flood Re, to help ensure all households can access insurance and that it is affordable.
The CCC highlights engagement with communities, ensuring that they are well informed about the future climate risks they face from extreme-weather events, as a key enabler of the above actions.
Holland Park, an affluent area of West London. Credit: BBA Travel / Alamy Stock PhotoIt notes that a number of policies are already in place to address flooding and overheating, as well as funding for large-scale flood-defence projects. However, it says more can be brought in to support the adaptation of the existing and planned building stock.
Public servicesThe CCC’s assessment of public services covers the facilities and operation of services outside of health and social care, such as education, justice and emergency services.
It highlights that hazards such as heatwaves and flooding can cause closure and disruption to the operation of services, as well as impact things such as children’s ability to concentrate. Even in the current climate, it says an estimated 4.3% of cumulative learning time is lost in England due to high temperatures.
Emergency workers are increasingly facing challenges created by climate change. For example, wildfires increase demand for fire and rescue, police and environmental-incident response services.
The CCC calls for the creation of new targets to help protect people from the impacts of increased temperatures and flood risk, including: internal temperatures in learning environments should be kept between 16-25C by 2050; and internal temperatures at prisons and justice facilities should be kept between 16-26C.
By 2030, all emergency services and incident responders should be equipped to meet all weather events, adds the committee.
The CCC sets out suggested actions the government could take to ensure that services operate during extreme weather at levels at least as good as today:
- Introducing outdoor shading, such as trees and canopies, at sites such as playgrounds and outside school gates;
- Rolling out passive cooling strategies;
- Introducing active cooling, such as air conditioning, where necessary to reduce indoor temperatures;
- Rolling out surface-water flood alleviation measures;
- Ensuring key assets are adapted, such as backup generators and response vehicles, so that climate change does not impact the delivery of public services;
- Rostering and timetabling should take into account climate-related travel and health issues, bolstered by flexible capacity within services and staff training;
- Introducing surveillance and early warning systems.
The CCC adds that retrofitting buildings to allow them to adapt to climate change will require both up-front funding and long-term revenue budgets, as will expansions of personnel.
It says policy should be used to ensure that building regulations and design standards for public buildings are suitable for future climate conditions. Additionally, the government should look to provide public funding, accessible and reliable climate information and help to improve joint working between different departments, delivery bodies and responders.
Cultural heritageThe CCC considers four aspects of cultural heritage in its report: cultural and archaeological sites and landscapes; buildings that are listed or otherwise significant; fixed assets, such as statues, monuments and shipwrecks; and moveable assets, such as art and historic documents.
Without adaptation, flooding, storms and coastal erosion may reduce access to these sites and assets, or even destroy them entirely. However, due to their varied nature, any adaptation plans need to be highly context-specific, it says.
Antony Gormley statue submerged in the Water of Leith at Bells Weir. Credit: Craig Brown / Alamy Stock Photo.The report notes that many of the CCC’s priority adaptation actions are broadly applicable across the four classes of cultural-heritage assets, such as:
- Increasing the frequency of inspections and repairs for built assets;
- Creating or strengthening flood barriers and coastal defences;
- Improving drainage around cultural-heritage sites;
- Adjusting opening times and access to help protect visitors and staff, such as temporary closures during extreme weather or installing raised walkways;
- Incorporating technology and digital solutions, such as early-warning systems, digitising collections and creating virtual tours;
- Managing loss, such as by relocating assets and transforming the use of historic buildings.
Adapting the UK’s cultural-heritage assets will require an unknown amount of funding, along with training to increase adaptation-planning capabilities, says the report. These plans must be developed for each context, it says, incorporating local risks, costs and the “potential acceptable future states” of these assets.
The report calls for heritage organisations to “plan for future climate conditions and share these plans for others to learn from”. It also recommends that such considerations should be required for projects receiving public funds in the future.
Water and wastewaterThe report groups together the UK’s water supply – both public and private – and wastewater infrastructure.
It notes that these systems are “not fit for the current, let alone future, climate”, with risks of both drought and floods expected to increase across the UK under future warming.
Droughts are the “most significant climate hazard” facing the water system, while heavy rainfall and flooding can damage both water and wastewater infrastructure and overwhelm the capacity of wastewater-transport systems.
The CCC proposes several priority adaptation actions for the water subsystem:
- Installing water-efficient products, such as low-flow fixtures on taps and toilets;
- Reusing non-potable water in specific instances, such as using rainwater to cool data centres;
- Encouraging behavioural changes, including through smart metering and water-efficiency labelling;
- Improving water-use efficiency in private use;
- Repairing leaks quickly – particularly the largest and most damaging ones;
- Installing protections against flooding and erosion;
- Increasing the use of reservoirs to store excess winter rainfall for summer usage;
- Improving pollution-management systems to protect existing water sources;
- Increasing water-treatment capacity and efficiency.
The committee also proposes actions to address adaptation in the wastewater subsystem:
- Separating the systems that carry rainwater from those that carry wastewater;
- Reducing the area of impermeable surfaces to decrease runoff;
- Encouraging behavioural changes to avoid blockages and flooding;
- Increasing the volume that the wastewater system can treat at a given time;
- Improving and decentralising water-treatment processes.
To adapt the water system to future climate change, the committee suggests creating minimum water-efficiency standards for appliances, as well as for new water users, such as data centres.
It also calls for increased planning and regulation between the water and wastewater sectors, as well as across other sectors that contribute heavily to water usage or wastewater generation.
Thames Water personnel fixing a burst water main near Windsor Castle. Credit: Maureen McLean / Alamy Stock Photo EnergyThe CCC warns that climate change is already impacting the energy sector. This includes electricity generation, storage and transport, as well as fuel production, storage and transport of gas, oil, bioenergy and sustainable aviation fuels.
It says that electricity networks are vulnerable to damage from flooding, high winds and increased heat, while heat and drought can reduce efficiency and capacity across the electricity grid and at power plants.
For example, the CCC says that in England, 22% of the electricity infrastructure is currently at risk of flooding, but this is expected to increase to 26% by 2040 due to climate change.
Flooding and water scarcity are the areas of most concern for the fuel-supply system.
The CCC adds that there are interdependencies between fuel and electricity systems.
The committee identifies the following adaptation actions to reduce the climate risk facing the energy system and to allow the current level of resilience to be maintained:
- Siting energy assets to reduce their exposure to climate hazards;
- Building redundancy into the energy system design to avoid single points of failure;
- Reinforcing existing energy assets and designing new ones with appropriate; protections;
- Ensuring that regular inspections of energy assets are undertaken and preventative maintenance is taken where possible;
- Managing vegetation around electricity and gas networks;
- Preparing ways to anticipate, respond to and recover from extreme events, such as early warning systems;
- Provide alternative sources of backup power.
The CCC identifies resources and funding as key enablers for undertaking these actions. It recognises the significant build-out of new equipment that is planned in the next five to 10 years in the energy sector, stating that it is “easier and more cost-effective to build resilience into infrastructure projects at the design stage rather than retrofitting later”.
Other enablers include clear plans, roles and responsibilities being set early and the use of technology and innovation.
The CCC notes that governance of the energy system is “complex”, with some elements centralised and others devolved, as well as splits across the public and private sectors. However, it says policy levers can be used to drive and monitor adaptation across segments, such as regulation, strategic planning and innovation provision.
The committee calls for continued UK government focus on timely and appropriate targets for investments, clarity on the future of the gas grid, wider mandatory adaptation reporting and other measures.
TransportThe committee’s transport-system assessment includes roads, rail and public transportation systems, as well as maritime and aviation infrastructure and operations.
The report notes that the interconnected nature of the UK’s transport system “offers some built-in redundancy”, but also increases the risk of cascading climate impacts.
The biggest climate hazard facing the UK’s transport system is flooding. However, it is also at risk from subsidence, erosion, high winds and extreme heat, according to the report.
Rail track dangling after heavy snow and floods at Stover Canal, Newton Abbot, Devon. Credit: nidpor / Alamy Stock PhotoThe CCC recommends the following measures as priorities for physically adapting the transport sector:
- Improving drainage systems across roadways, tunnels and urban rail systems;
- Installing coastal flood defences, such as seawalls and “rock armour”, near infrastructure located in floodplains;
- Reinforcing embankments, installing retaining structures and strengthening earthworks to protect against erosion;
- Using materials that are durable at higher temperatures, as well as integrating other temperature-reducing measures, such as shading and airflow;
- Reinforcing tall structures against high winds.
It also recommends several operational adaptations for the sector:
- Increasing preventative maintenance, including by clearing drains, dredging waterways, patching tarmac and painting rails;
- Using technology to optimise schedule, route and speed-limit adjustments;
- Implementing contingency plans to protect system-critical assets during severe disruptions.
To implement these adaptation measures, the CCC recommends improving the available guidance and reporting for planners and operators. It notes that planning policies and design codes should embed an “appropriate consideration of climate risk”, such as exposure to hazards.
It also calls for improved resilience standards and engagement with the public to determine the level of service expected in the future and the level of investment required to achieve that.
WasteThe waste sector is facing climate risks predominantly relating to mine tailings and historic landfill sites, with heavier rainfall increasing the risk of landslides that can threaten communities, according to the CCC.
For example, 368 out of 2,590 coal-mine tips in Wales are currently categorised as posing a potential risk to public safety. Increased rainfall and storms under a 2C of global warming in 2050 will increase the potential for landslides at these sites, as well as the number of sites that require adaptation.
The report says that government action is needed to reduce these risks. It adds that better data and monitoring should be used to prioritise the sites that pose the greatest risk.
The CCC sets out actions to ensure these waste sites are managed safely and do not harm people or the environment around them:
- Improving drainage at waste sites and stabilising their slopes stabilised;
- Installing coastal and flood defences at waste sites where needed;
- Treating waste to stabilise or remove hazardous materials;
- Permanently removing or relocating waste from vulnerable sites.
The biggest enabler for these changes will be resources and funding, according to the CCC.
Local authorities have some regulatory power to manage historic waste sites, which it says they should use to ensure adaptation actions are taken.
Digital and telecomsThe digital and telecommunications sector is made up of both public and private networks, as well as infrastructure such as data centres, wired connections and other assets.
Climate change threatens the sector directly, by damaging or otherwise challenging this telecommunications infrastructure, according to the CCC. However, says the report, the “main climate risk” facing the telecoms sector is its “fundamental dependency on the power system”.
The report notes that storms and flooding can damage infrastructure and cause power failures, while high temperatures can overwhelm cooling systems and force systems to overheat.
The CCC calls for several physical adaptation measures to protect digital and telecoms assets:
- Choosing infrastructure sites to reduce vulnerabilities to flooding and wind;
- Installing physical protection measures, such as flood defences and underground cables, for existing infrastructure;
- Completing the changeover to fibre-based digital systems, which are more water-resistant than existing networks;
- Adopting cooling systems and upgrading existing ones to withstand projected future temperatures;
- Adopting more water-efficient cooling systems to reduce vulnerability to water shortages.
Resilience can also be achieved through redundancy measures, it says:
- Installing backup generators, on-site batteries and other redundancies for the power supply;
- Providing backup batteries to consumers to ensure access to emergency services in case of power outages;
- Creating redundancy in cooling systems and network connections;
- Encouraging consumers to store key data in multiple locations to reduce the impact of data-centre outages.
Some of these actions are already underway, notes the report. For example, the changeover to fibre-based systems is expected to be completed by January 2027.
It says resilience will also require regulatory clarity, such as confirming that the UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) has a mandate to cover data centres, as well as climate resilience. It notes that this oversight is “expected to be confirmed” by the pending Cyber Security and Resilience Bill.
The CCC also calls for mandatory reporting of climate risks and resilience plans for companies that provide critical telecoms services.
LandEven if adaptation measures are taken, the land sector – including not just the UK’s terrestrial ecosystems, but also land-related commercial industries, such as farming and forestry – will “not all be able to stay the same as today”, says the report.
Changing temperatures and rainfall patterns are some of the most pressing challenges facing the land sector, with the hot-and-dry summer of 2025 causing more than £800m in revenue loss for England’s farmers.
Climate change is also increasing the frequency of threats, such as wildfires, pests and pathogens, as well as the spread of invasive alien species.
Flooded fields with hay bails on farmland on the Somerset Levels. Credit: Paul Glendell / Alamy Stock PhotoThe CCC identifies several priority actions for adaptation in the land sector, with different types of terrestrial ecosystems requiring different measures:
- Increasing the diversity and connectivity of habitats for both wild lands and land-based commercial activities;
- Rewetting peatlands and allowing other ecosystems to naturally regenerate;
- Managing the spread of invasive species, pests, pathogens and diseases;
- Preparing for wildfires, as well as reducing their occurrence and spread through managing fuel loads and maintaining fire breaks;
- Encouraging the use of resilient soil- and water-management practices and improving on-farm biodiversity;
- Adjusting farm planning in response to the changing climate, such as by shifting to different crops or adjusting the timing of planting and harvesting;
- Planting shade trees near riverbanks;
- Creating new coastal habitats;
- Manually moving vulnerable species to locations where they may be able to thrive under a changed climate.
It adds that achieving resilience in the land sector can also be aided by reducing the non-climate pressures that threaten habitats, such as pollution.
The committee notes that delivering on these actions will require both the support of government agencies and private landowners. It says that doing so will require public funding for adaptation, cultural awareness and acceptance of change, as well as flexible regulation and coherent frameworks on land use.
SeaSimilar to the land sector, the CCC’s suggestions for sea-system adaptation measures cut across multiple other sectors, including human health, international trade and food security.
The UK’s seas are already both warming and acidifying in response to human-caused fossil-fuel emissions, with impacts up and down the marine food chain.
By 2050, without adaptation measures, the UK could experience seabird population declines of more than 70%, fisheries employment losses of up to 20% and a rise in disease outbreaks, says the report.
The CCC identifies the following priority adaptation actions focused on both marine habitats and on human activities related to the sea sector:
- Creating larger, better-connected marine protected areas;
- Improving international cooperation around marine protection;
- Diversifying the species targeted by fisheries – moving away from cold-water species, such as cod and haddock, towards warmer-water ones, such as tuna;
- Increasing the genetic diversity of farmed species to increase resilience to disease;
- Sustainably managing wild fish populations, even if this means reducing fishing in the short term;
- Investing in more resilient equipment to withstand stronger storms;
- Relocating aquaculture away from the migration pathways of wild species;
- Preventing the spread of invasive species, diseases, pests and pathogens.
Similar to the land system, the committee says that reducing external pressures – including pollution and harmful fishing practices – can support achieving resilience in the sea system.
The report notes several existing policies that can aid in adaptation for the sea system, including the UK Marine Strategy and the 2020 Fisheries Act. However, it notes that “many actions to adapt [the sector] sit within the industry itself”.
Specific government actions that can support adaptation include changing the licensing and quotas for the fishing industry to reduce the pressure of overfishing, it adds.
Food securityThe report considers the “food security” system to include food and agricultural inputs imported from abroad, separate from the country’s own farming and fisheries.
It notes that in 2023, 40% of the UK’s food was imported.
A number of extreme weather events pose hazards to food production and transport, potentially impacting food security both in the UK and globally. These events can also drive up food prices, while warming trends can lower average crop yields and drive changes in the suitability of growing regions.
While agricultural productivity is projected to continue to increase in the future due to improved technological efficiency, it is “unclear how these trends will interact with climate change and extreme weather shocks”, says the report.
Dry and cracked soil in a field in rural Worcestershire, during dry weather. Credit: Alan Harbottle / Alamy Stock PhotoAdapting the UK’s food-security system will require undertaking a number of priority actions, says the CCC:
- Shifting working hours for agricultural labourers, providing shading and taking other measures to protect workers from heat stress;
- Investing in capacity-building, skills and technology to improve sustainability and efficiency for local producers;
- Diversifying the supply chains of both imported foods and inputs to UK agriculture, such as fertilisers, animal feed and fuel;
- Reducing food waste (edible food that is discarded at the retail level or by consumers);
- Investing in resilient cold-chain infrastructure for transporting and storing temperature-sensitive food products;
- Stress-testing the global commodity markets and preparing for potential shocks, such as export bans;
- Considering centralised stockpiling of critical food supplies.
Many of these actions are “expected to be delivered by market forces and industry”, says the report, although doing so will require engagement with and improved information for these actors. It suggests that requiring food-related businesses to disclose their climate risks could facilitate adaptation decisions.
The report also suggests strengthening international collaboration, such as through food-trade agreements, as well as providing support to vulnerable groups to alleviate potential food-price inflation due to climate shocks.
Economy and financeThe CCC divides the economy and finance sector into three subsystems: businesses, which provide goods and services; finance, which provides banking, investment and insurance services; and the macroeconomy, which accounts for the country’s overall economic strength through GDP, employment, inflation and other indicators.
All three of these subsystems are impacted by climate change, says the report.
Climate hazards, such as heatwaves, storms and flooding, can disrupt supply chains and daily operations in the business sector.
Climate-related damages can threaten financial assets and increase insurance costs, which can “reduce capacity to recover from climate events and create risks to financial stability and economic growth”, it says.
Meanwhile, macroeconomic indicators such as GDP and inflation can be “negatively affected by all climate-related impacts across sectors”, adds the report.
For the business subsystem, the CCC recommends the following priority adaptation actions:
- Identifying and managing climate-related risks to commercial assets, such as by installing flood defences and air-conditioning systems;
- Protecting workers from climate hazards, such as by adjusting working hours or providing shade and water;
- Reducing supply-chain exposure to climate hazards by diversifying suppliers, stockpiling resources and making procurement decisions with climate risk in mind;
- Identifying opportunities for businesses to provide adaptation innovations, goods and services.
For the finance subsystem, the committee outlines the following priorities:
- Collecting company-level data on climate risks and adaptation;
- Incorporating climate risks and adaptation costs into financial decisions;
- Reducing financial risks by accounting for the climate risks posed to financial institutions’ capital assets;
- Integrating adaptation into insurance products, pooling risk and issuing climate-responsive products, such as resilience bonds, which fund adaptation projects.
The CCC also details several priority actions for the macroeconomy:
- Creating a fiscal framework for the UK government that incorporates adaptation costs and potential future climate-related spending;
- Effectively responding to climate-related inflationary pressures;
- Reducing the climate risks associated with critical supply chains, such as energy, food and pharmaceuticals.
Carrying out these actions will require resources and capacity-building for businesses and financial institutions, as well as clearly defined roles and responsibilities for all involved actors, says the report.
National security and international engagementThe final sectoral section in the CCC’s “well-adapted UK” report looks at how international climate change poses risks to national security, foreign policy and development interests.
The committee says a key message is that the UK is interconnected with the rest of the world, meaning that no matter how well-adapted the country is domestically, it will be threatened by international climate risks.
The CCC says that national security ”cannot be ensured without climate resilience”. Moreover, it says that the UK has an obligation to help other countries adapt and build resilience – and that it will benefit from such aid.
This comes just days after the UK announced its intention to cut funding to the UN’s flagship Green Climate Fund, which provides climate financing for developing countries.
The CCC highlights that “climate-change impacts, weak economic development and inequality exacerbate each other”, as well as noting that climate hazards are a growing driver of involuntary migration.
It recommends the following measures to help maintain UK national security and fulfil international commitments in the face of global climate risks:
- Adapting the defence sector, including training and equipping forces to operate in more extreme weather conditions;
- Embedding climate considerations within decision-making processes;
- Providing direct adaptation assistance to support other countries and territories;
- Mobilising international private adaptation finance;
- Sharing and exporting the UK’s capabilities internationally, both in climate science and financial services.
Financial resources are one of the most important enablers for these actions, alongside a clear division of roles and responsibilities and effective use of data and monitoring.
The CCC also calls for sustained diplomacy and engagement on climate adaptation.
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Factcheck: Trump’s false claims about the IPCC and ‘RCP8.5’ climate scenario
Among a flurry of posts on social media last weekend, US president Donald Trump declared “good riddance” to a specific emissions scenario used in global climate projections.
The “RCP8.5” scenario, which envisages a future of very high carbon emissions, was “wrong, wrong, wrong”, the president wrote in block capitals.
This was “just admitted” by the UN’s “top climate committee”, he falsely claimed, referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The post was quickly picked up by right-leaning media, amplifying Trump’s misrepresentation of emissions scenarios and the role of the IPCC.
His claim follows the publication of a new set of emissions scenarios that will feed into the next IPCC reports.
While the new scenarios no longer include such high emissions as in RCP8.5, they also show it is “not possible” to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels without significant “overshoot”, one of the authors tells Carbon Brief.
Moreover, projections suggest that the world is still on course for between 2.5C and 3C of warming, another author says.
This level of warming was previously described as “catastrophic” by the UN.
In this factcheck, Carbon Brief looks at Trump’s comments, the debate around RCP8.5 and the “good” and “bad” news within the latest scenarios.
- What did Trump say?
- What is RCP8.5?
- Why is RCP8.5 so hotly debated?
- How has RCP8.5 been replaced?
- How is the IPCC involved?
In the late evening of Saturday 16 May, Trump posted the following message on his Truth Social social-media platform:
“Dumocrats” is a derogatory nickname for Democrat politicians, debuted by the president in a televised Fox News interview on Thursday 14 May, according to the Independent.
By “top climate committee”, the president was presumably referring to the IPCC, the UN body responsible for assessing science about human-caused climate change.
However, the IPCC does not develop, control or own climate scenarios. Moreover, it has not published anything stating that any climate scenario is “wrong”. (For more, see: How is the IPCC involved?)
Nevertheless, right-leaning media outlets have reported on Trump’s comments, in many instances repeating his false assertion that the RCP8.5 climate scenario had been developed by the IPCC.
The New York Post misleadingly claimed that the IPCC “had quietly adjusted” its framework of emission scenarios. The Daily Caller, a pro-Trump conspiratorial US outlet, adds its own falsehoods stating that “IPCC researchers revised their modelling approach last month, swapping the extreme pathway for seven alternative scenarios”. The climate-sceptic Australian claimed that scientists had “quietly scrapped the apocalyptic forecasts that have terrified policymakers and the public”.
With Fox News also covering Trump’s comments, along with an earlier article by the Times, much of the reporting around RCP8.5 in recent days has been driven by media controlled by the climate-sceptic mogul Rupert Murdoch.
It is not the first time the Trump administration has attacked RCP8.5. In an executive order issued in May 2025 – entitled, “Restoring gold-standard science” – the White House included the climate scenario in a list of examples of how the previous government had “used or promoted scientific information in a highly misleading manner”.
Federal agencies, it claimed, had been using RCP8.5 to “assess the potential effects of climate change in a higher warming scenario”, despite scientists warning that “presenting RCP8.5 as a likely outcome is misleading”.
The executive order came after Project 2025 – a policy wishlist for Trump’s second term published in 2023 by the Heritage Foundation, an influential rightwing, climate-sceptic thinktank in the US – criticised the climate scenario.
The manifesto said a “day-one” priority for the new government should be to “eliminate” the US Environmental Protection Agency’s “use of unauthorised regulatory inputs”, such as “unrealistic climate scenarios, including those based on RCP8.5”.
What is RCP8.5?Scientists use emissions scenarios to explore potential future climates, based on how global energy and land use could change in the decades to come.
These scenarios are not predictions or forecasts of what will happen in the future. Therefore, Trump’s declaration that projections under RCP8.5 were “wrong, wrong, wrong” misrepresents the purpose of emissions scenarios.
Different modelling groups have produced thousands of different scenarios over the years. RCP8.5 was developed by scientists back in the early 2010s as one of a set of four consistent “representative concentration pathways”, or RCPs, for climate modellers to use.
As their name suggests, the RCPs were representative of the vast array of scenarios in the scientific literature.
Their corresponding numbers – 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5 – do not describe temperature rise (as some mistakenly assume), but the level of “radiative forcing” that each pathway reaches by 2100. This forcing level is a measure of the change in the Earth’s “energy balance” (in watts per square metre) caused by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
As the highest forcing of the set, RCP8.5 was a scenario of very high emissions and extensive global warming.
When it was originally published in 2011, RCP8.5 was intended to reflect the high end – roughly the 90th percentile – of the baseline scenarios available in the scientific literature at the time.
A “baseline” scenario is one that assumes no climate mitigation, explains Dr Chris Smith, senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. He tells Carbon Brief:
“RCP8.5 was developed as a no-climate-policy scenario, often called ‘reference’ or ‘baseline’ scenarios. These are used to benchmark the actions of climate policy.”
Under RCP8.5, the IPCC’s fifth assessment report (AR5) in 2013 projected a best estimate of 4.3C of temperature rise by 2081-2100, compared to the pre-industrial period, with a “likely” range of 3.2C to 5.4C.
The RCPs were succeeded in 2017 by the “shared socioeconomic pathways”, or SSPs. The SSPs included a set of five socioeconomic “narratives”, which described factors such as population change, economic growth and the rate of technological development.
The SSPs were then used in the IPCC’s sixth assessment (AR6) cycle, which ran over 2015-23. The upper end of the AR6 temperature projections was provided by the successor to RCP8.5, known as SSP5-8.5, which indicated warming of 4.4C by 2081-2100, with a “very likely” range of 3.3C to 5.7C.
Why is RCP8.5 so hotly debated?Prof Detlef van Vuuren from Utrecht University, a leading figure in the development of emissions scenarios for many years, tells Carbon Brief that RCP8.5 is a “low-probability, high-risk scenario and it was always meant like that”.
The scenario assumed a world without climate policy and was designed to explore the consequences of high levels of greenhouse gases and global warming. It was not, van Vueren says, a “best-guess scenario” of what the future held in store.
However, in some research papers, RCP8.5 was characterised as “business as usual”, suggesting that it was the likely outcome if society did not pursue climate action.
This was “incorrect”, says van Vuuren, noting that RCP8.5 “is not a likely outcome”. He adds: “It’s never been a likely outcome.”
Over time, RCP8.5 became hotly debated in academic circles, with some scientists arguing that such high emissions were becoming increasingly unlikely and others claiming that RCP8.5 was still consistent with historical cumulative carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Carbon Brief unpacked the arguments in this debate in a detailed explainer in 2019.
The charts below, originally included in a 2012 Nature commentary and then updated each year by the authors, shows how projected CO2 emissions under RCP8.5 (red line) compares with the other RCPs (bold coloured lines) and observations (black line).
The left-hand chart shows total CO2 emissions, including land-use change, while the right-hand chart shows CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and producing cement – the dominant drivers of 21st century emissions.
Global total CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and land use (left) and global fossil CO2 emissions (left) for historical observations (black lines) and the four RCP (coloured bold lines) for 1980-2050. Originally produced as part of Peters et al. (2012) and since updated by Glen Peters and Robbie Andrew.While emission trends up to the early 2010s approximately tracked RCP8.5, a flattening of emissions growth in the years since has meant they have not kept pace with the sustained rises that were assumed in the scenario.
Over the past decade, global emissions have more closely tracked RCP4.5, one of the two “medium stabilisation scenarios” of the original four RCPs.
The debate around RCP8.5 has not just focused on current emissions, but also on the scenario’s underlying assumptions for the future.
When it was published in 2011, the world had just seen unprecedented growth in global CO2 emissions, which had increased by 30% over the previous decade. Global coal use had increased by nearly 50% over the same period. Cleaner alternatives remained expensive in most countries and the idea of continued rapid growth in coal use seemed realistic.
Critics of RCP8.5 point to its assumptions for a dramatic expansion of coal use in the future, as well as high growth in global population.
For example, in a 2017 paper, two scientists argued that the “return to coal” envisaged in RCP8.5 would require an unprecedented five-fold increase in global coal use by the end of the century. Such an outcome was “exceptionally unlikely”, the authors wrote.
However, others have argued that while high-emissions scenarios are becoming increasingly unlikely, they still have an important role to play. For example, they highlight risks that only emerge under higher levels of warming.
In addition, research has shown that feedbacks in the climate system – where warming triggers the release of more CO2 and methane, which warms the planet further – could mean that human-caused emissions lead to a higher radiative forcing and have a greater climate impact than initially assumed.
In a post on the RealClimate website, Dr Gavin Schmidt – director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies – unpacks why scenarios are updated and “why high-end scenarios are important”.
How has RCP8.5 been replaced?As the IPCC heads into its seventh assessment cycle (AR7), scientists have been developing the emissions scenarios and climate model projections that will – eventually – feed into its reports.
For the emissions scenarios, that process – known as ScenarioMIP – started back in 2023 at a meeting in Reading, UK. This involved scientists representing “different climate research communities”, explains van Vuuren.
This “brainstorming” session devised the outlines for the new scenarios, he says. After more meetings, these were subsequently developed into a proposal that was – after review – translated into a journal paper. After review from scientists and the public, the final paper was published in April.
The paper sets out seven all-new emissions scenarios, replacing the SSPs (and its predecessors, the RCPs). For simplicity, the new scenarios are named according to their levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
The figures below show the emissions (left) and the estimated global temperature changes (right) under the proposed scenarios, from the “low-to-negative” emissions scenario (turquoise) up to a “high-emissions” scenario (brown).
The greenhouse gas emissions for each of the CMIP7 climate scenarios (left) and the associated estimated average temperature change over 2000-2150 from a 1850-1900 baseline (right) using the FaIR emulator. Source: Adapted from Van Vuuren et al. (2026)(It should be noted that, while the ScenarioMIP paper has been published, there remains an embargo on using the scenario data produced by integrated assessment models – often referred to as IAMs – to publish academic papers, analysis or even social media posts until 1 September this year. Carbon Brief will publish a detailed explainer on the new scenarios once the embargo lifts.)
When compared to the SSPs that came before, the range in future emissions in the new scenarios “will be smaller”, the authors say in the paper:
“On the high-end of the range, the…high emission levels (quantified by SSP5-8.5) have become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emission trends…At the low end, many…emission trajectories have become inconsistent with observed trends during the 2020-30 period.”
In other words, the combination of technological progress and action on climate change that, to date, remains insufficient, means that scenarios of very high or very low emissions are now not considered plausible.
Another way of looking at it is that the “range of potential futures has narrowed”, explains Smith, one of the authors on the paper.
If you “draw a fan or plume of potential future emissions that start in 2025”, it lies entirely within the spread of scenarios from a decade ago, he says:
“So you’ve ruled out futures at the high end. You’ve also ruled out futures at the low end – so it’s now not possible to limit warming to 1.5C, at least in the short term or the medium term.”
This is a mix of “good” and “bad” news, Smith adds.
“In the latest set of scenarios, the lowest [scenario sees] peaking at about 1.7C, so we’ve also lost that low end, but the good news is we’ve lost the high end…Back in 2010, RCP8.5 wasn’t an implausible future, we’ve now made it an implausible future, because we’ve actually bent the curve [on emissions] enough to eliminate that possibility.”
The new “high” scenario projects warming in 2100 of closer to 3.3C (with a range of 2.5C to 4.4C).
To be clear, this “high” scenario would still come with catastrophic climate impacts, even if the level of warming would remain slightly below what was set out in RCP8.5.
Van Vuuren adds that the world is “now on a trajectory to 2.5-3C of warming”. As a result, “we don’t have any scenario anymore that can reach 1.5C with limited overshoot – we will have a significant overshoot”.
How is the IPCC involved?Contrary to Trump’s claims, the common set of future emissions scenarios used by climate scientists are not developed by the IPCC, the UN climate-science body that produces landmark reports about climate change.
Instead, the development process described above is driven by a group of Earth system modelling experts convened by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP).
CMIP – an initiative of another UN body, the World Climate Research Programme – coordinates the work of dozens of climate modelling centres around the world.
Working in six-to-eight year cycles, CMIP asks modelling centres around the world to run a common set of climate-model experiments – simulations that use the same inputs and conditions – that allows for results to be collected together and more easily compared.
For experiments that explore how the climate might change in the future, modelling centres are instructed to run simulations against a fixed set of future climate scenarios, each with different levels of concentrations of greenhouse gases, aerosols and other drivers of climate change.
These future emissions scenarios are revisited each time CMIP embarks on a new “phase” of climate-modelling coordination, to reflect advances in scientific understanding and the pace of real-world climate action.
The group tasked with producing the design of future scenarios, as well as the “input files” for climate models, is the “scenario model intercomparison project”, or ScenarioMIP.
CMIP aligns its work with the schedule of the IPCC, coordinating a new set of model runs for each IPCC assessment cycle.
For example, the IPCC’s AR5 in 2013 featured climate models from the fifth phase of CMIP (CMIP5), whereas AR6 in 2021 used climate models from CMIP’s sixth phase (CMIP6).
AR7 will feature models from CMIP’s ongoing seventh phase (CMIP7). The first results from CMIP7 model runs are expected later this year.
The IPCC is consulted during the CMIP process, van Vuuren tells Carbon Brief, but its input is “no different from any other review comment” that the ScenarioMIP team received.
Thus, while the IPCC relies on model runs coordinated by CMIP in its landmark reports, it does not play a role in designing future emissions scenarios, nor in deciding when they should be retired.
Dr Robert Vautard, co-chair of IPCC AR7 Working Group I, tells Carbon Brief that the IPCC does not “do or coordinate research”. Its role, he says, is to “synthesise existing knowledge” and produce “regular” reviews of climate-science literature.
He adds that ScenarioMIP is just one set of scenarios the climate-science body assesses in its reports:
“IPCC assesses all scenarios, or sets of scenarios, that the scientific community produces. IPCC does not produce scenarios. CMIP7 will be [one] set of scenarios assessed by IPCC [for AR7] – but there will be many others.”
The IPCC has also released a statement in response to the recent reporting, reiterating that the paper on the new scenarios “belongs to the broader body of scientific literature produced by the international research community, under the coordination of the WCRP, not the IPCC”. It adds:
“The IPCC does not conduct its own research, run models or make measurements. It does not own the scenarios described in the mentioned paper, nor does it own any of the scenarios assessed in the sixth assessment report.”
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Fact brief - Does electromagnetic radiation from wind turbines pose a threat to human health?
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Does electromagnetic radiation from wind turbines pose a threat to human health?Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from wind turbines are well below international exposure safety limits.
Wind turbines produce EMFs mainly from their electrical equipment. Multiple studies have found their strength to be lower than everyday exposure to many common household appliances, such as microwaves and vacuum cleaners.
In a field study at a Canadian wind farm, average magnetic fields at the base of operating turbines were around 0.1 microtesla (µT) and dropped to background levels within 2 meters. Turbines under high wind and low wind conditions emitted equivalent levels of radiation. Another 2020 study found wind turbines produced under 0.1 µT at 4 meters distance.
For comparison, an electric can opener measures about 60 µT at 6 inches but 0.2 µT at 4 feet. International guidelines set a safety reference level of 100 µT at 50 Hz, far above the turbine measurements reported in field studies.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.
Sources
Environmental Health Measuring electromagnetic fields (EMF) around wind turbines in Canada: is there a human health concern?
Radiation Protection Dosimetry EXTREMELY LOW FREQUENCY ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD EXPOSURE MEASUREMENT IN THE VICINITY OF WIND TURBINES
World Health Organization Radiation: Electromagnetic fields
Frontiers in Human Health Wind Turbines and Human Health
Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles
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About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer "yes/no" answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.
Five things you need to know about El Niño’s likely comeback
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Rafael Méndez Tejeda
El Niño is (probably) coming back later this year.
And this time, it’s unfolding against a backdrop of unusually warm oceans and an even warmer climate system than the last time we experienced this natural climate pattern.
Here is what you need to know about it.
What is El Niño?The term El Niño is part of a broader phenomenon called El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It’s a recurring climate pattern involving changes in sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern tropical Pacific.
Copernicus, a European climate data service, reported that in March 2026, the average sea surface temperatures in the Pacific reached 20.97°C – the second-highest value ever recorded for March, which suggests a likely transition toward El Niño conditions.
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation is one of the planet’s most important natural mechanisms through which the ocean and atmosphere exchange energy and reorganize the global climate from year to year.
The phenomenon has three phases: the warm phase is El Niño, the cool phase is La Niña, and between the two lies a neutral or transitional phase, when neither dominates clearly. The changes occur in the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean, within 700 miles of the equator.
The consensus among climate models – including those from NOAA – indicates with high probability the onset and subsequent intensification of El Niño starting in fall 2026, with some models suggesting it could be an unusually intense event.
We can anticipate more heat waves with a strengthening El Niño, along with more extreme events ranging from heavy rainfall to drought. El Niño tends to intensify the subtropical jet stream, favoring wetter conditions and greater storm activity across the southern United States and northern Mexico, while the northern United States and Canada experience a relatively warmer and drier pattern, affecting snow cover and water availability. At the same time, the effects of El Niño usually reduce the frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.
The return of El Niño is not synonymous with climate changeEl Niño is a natural phenomenon of the ocean-atmosphere system. But when it coincides with a planet already warmed by human activity, its effects can be amplified. The World Meteorological Organization warned that during the last El Niño period (2023–2024), the combination of El Niño and climate change hit Latin America and the Caribbean with greater force, worsening droughts, heat waves, wildfires, extreme rainfall, and other impacts with significant human and economic costs.
El Niño affects more than the Pacific regionAlthough El Niño originates in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, its effects extend to other regions of the planet through processes known as climate teleconnections – atmospheric links that allow massive cloud formations to develop as a result of the enormous evaporation generated by the warming of ocean waters.
El Niño disrupts what is known as the Walker Cell or Walker Circulation, a tropical atmospheric circulation system that transports heat, moisture, and energy on a large scale. These disturbances propagate through the atmosphere in the form of planetary waves, modifying global pressure and wind patterns. As a result, El Niño’s influence reaches the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean, where significant changes in regional climate occur.
Among these effects are a tendency toward drier conditions in certain periods due to descending air and a redistribution of heat that contributes to higher temperatures and more intense heat waves. In short, even though El Niño occurs far from where most Yale Climate Connections readers live, its impact is clearly felt because Earth’s climate system is interconnected, and atmospheric disturbances can travel vast distances.
During El Niño, increased variability in wind direction and speed – which inhibits hurricane formation – can act as a buffer against hurricane activity. However, hurricane formation in the Atlantic depends on multiple factors, including conditions in the Atlantic itself – such as sea surface temperatures, atmospheric moisture, and the Azores High, a large semipermanent center of high atmospheric pressure that sits over the North Atlantic near the Azores islands. And when it comes to hurricanes, we should never let our guard down completely.
How El Niño affects hurricane formation in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. (Image credit: NOAA / Climate.gov)
In general terms, precipitation tends to be greater during La Niña or neutral years than during El Niño years. This does not mean the disappearance of all rainfall. But it does suggest a greater probability of rainfall deficits, water stress, and, in some cases, the development of drought conditions – which could worsen the drought already affecting Southern and Western U.S. states.
El Niño is not here yetAccording to the most recent diagnostic discussion from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, current conditions are ENSO-neutral. That same assessment indicates that neutral conditions are likely through May, April, June, and July 2026, potentially extending through September, at which point a transition to the warm phase of ENSO could begin. All forecasting centers emphasize that significant uncertainty remains regarding its ultimate intensity.
El Niño does not arrive on a fixed scheduleBoth NOAA and other scientific bodies agree that it appears irregularly, generally every two to seven years, though the average tends to fall closer to every three to four years. Episodes typically last between nine and 18 months, and in some cases, somewhat longer due to the effects of global warming.
Factcheck: US and Iran are world’s only major emitters without net-zero targets
Many right-leaning figures have tried to push the idea that the UK is an outlier on net-zero.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has claimed that other countries are “not following us” in aiming to cut emissions to net-zero, while GB News owner Paul Marshall said in March that the UK is “pursuing a path of unilateral economic disarmament”.
Both are among those on the right of UK politics who have falsely claimed that the UK’s net-zero target is “unilateral” and that this is a reason why the goal should be abandoned.
However, these claims ignore that 140 of the world’s 198 countries (71%) have net-zero targets.
In fact, Iran and the US are the only two of the world’s top 20 carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters that lack a net-zero target, as shown in the map below.
If the UK were to scrap its net-zero target, as called for by both the opposition Conservatives and hard-right Reform UK, this is the group of major emitters it would be joining.
Countries with net-zero targets, as of May 2026. Data source: Net Zero TrackerThe latest assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s foremost authority on climate science, said the only way to stop global warming was to reach net-zero CO2 emissions.
The UK was the first major economy to set a net-zero target in 2019.
Since then, almost all of the world’s major emitters have followed suit, with China announcing a net-zero target in 2020 and India, Saudi Arabia and Russia launching goals in 2021.
Around 74% of global emissions are now covered by some kind of national net-zero target, according to data from the Net Zero Tracker, a consortium tracking net-zero policies.
According to the Net Zero Tracker, 34 nations – including the UK – have set a net-zero target into law, signifying the highest possible level of commitment.
In addition, 63 nations have stated their goal in a policy document, 16 nations have made a net-zero “pledge” and 23 nations have a net-zero “proposal”. (Four nations have declared that they have already reached net-zero.)
Types of net-zero targets across countries. Data source: Net Zero TrackerThe US, the world’s largest historical emitter when counting its cumulative climate impact since the start of the industrial revolution, had a net-zero target under former president Joe Biden. However, it was abandoned by the current Trump administration.
Despite this, some 18 regions and 43 cities in the US still have some form of net-zero commitment, according to the Net Zero Tracker.
John Lang, lead of the Net Zero Tracker, tells Carbon Brief:
“Ironically, of the world’s 20 largest emitters, only the US and Iran lack net-zero targets – precisely as the Iran crisis exposes the risks of dependence on fossil fuels and volatile oil markets.
“Arguing against net-zero is arguing for greater exposure to geopolitical instability and energy price shocks. The UK has already shown that cutting fossil-fuel dependence can go hand in hand with economic growth, reducing emissions by 54% since 1990 while almost doubling the size of the economy.”
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2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
Climate Change Impacts (10 articles)
- This critical climate system is tipping…. Or is it? DrGilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert, May 9, 2026.
- This summer, the American water crisis becomes real Concerns over water access are poised to consume summer in the U.S., as crises in Corpus Christi and across the Colorado River threaten to boil over. Grist, Molly Taft, May 10, 2026.
- Poll: Most Coloradans say climate change is harming human health More than 1 in 3 Coloradans say they or a loved one has experienced a climate-change related health impact, according to new survey data Colorado Sun, John Ingold, May 11, 2026.
- Why has this autumn been so hot and dry? Australia's autumn behaves as expected from climate models The Conversation, Kimberley Reid, May 11, 2026.
- 2026 Has Already Broken Climate Records. El Niño Could Break More. The increasingly likely emergence of an El Niño this summer will likely continue the year’s record-breaking weather trends and could lead to “an unprecedented year of global fire,” according to a statement from World Weather Attribution, a climate research collaboration. Eos, Grace van Deelen, May 12, 2026.
- Some climate shocks can increase the likelihood of war Researchers warn against oversimplifying climate change’s role in conflicts, but some conditions can increase the likelihood of violence. The Daily Climate, EHN Curators, May 12, 2026.
- Something startling is happening in the Gulf of Mexico Its waters are heating up twice as fast as the global oceans, with huge implications for hurricane risk. Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters, May 13, 2026.
- Melting of Greenland ice sheet could release large stores of methane Seismic surveys and sediment cores suggest that dozens of deep pockmarks on the sea floor were created when Arctic methane stores were disrupted by climate change after the last glacial maximum. New Scientist, Alec Luhn, May 14, 2026.
- Scientists find climate change is reducing oxygen in rivers worldwide Global warming is causing rivers to slowly lose oxygen, threatening fish and other lives. The Independent News, Seth Borenstein, May 15, 2026.
- Are we wrong about this..? Dr Gilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert, May 15, 2026.
Climate Science and Research (4 articles)
- Why Should You Care About Changes In Atlantic Ocean Currents? Mechanisms and impacts of a collapsing Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) explained— good to know because AMOC cessation is currently a favorite hobbyhorse of climate denialists due to it being convenently confusing. CleanTechnica, Carolyn Fortuna, May 09, 2026.
- Antarctica is melting from below and scientists say it`s worse than expected Hidden warm-water traps beneath Antarctica’s ice shelves may be speeding up sea level rise far faster than expected. ScienceDaily, iC3 Polar Research Hub, May 10, 2026.
- Drilling Into the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica A deep read on the why, how and extraordinary challenges of obtaining deep samples of the sea level critical Thwaites glacier, with some spectacular photographs. NYT, Raymond Zhong and Chang W. Lee, May 11, 2026.
- A New Study Explains How Carbon Dioxide Cools the Upper Atmosphere-and Warms Earth Below In a new study, researchers from Columbia University describe the phenomenon’s mechanics, illuminating how it is largely determined by the way carbon dioxide (CO2) interacts with different wavelengths of light. State of the Planet, Columbia Climate School, May 12, 2026.
Climate Policy and Politics (3 articles)
- Top climate research center at risk of cuts sues Trump administration Universities that run the National Center for Atmospheric Research want to keep it from being dismantled Scientific American, Alexandra Witze, May 09, 2026.
- Nudge theory was all about taking responsibility - but it allowed big business to look the other way 'Nudges" inadvertently result in ''responsibilisation,'' disproportionate assignment of culpability for environmental harm to individuals when that harm is rooted in industrial practices often begging for better regulation. The Conversation, Nick Chater, May 11, 2026.
- The Global Impact of Losing U.S. Sea Level Science Cuts to climate science risk halting or even erasing decades of progress in global change research—just as risks from rising seas demand better data, informed decisionmaking, and faster action. Eos, Andra J. Garner, Robert E. Kopp, Gregory G. Garner, Aimée B. A. Slangen and Benjamin P. Horton, May 15, 2026.
Climate Education and Communication (2 articles)
- The scientific study story has a questionable future. That may be a good thing The way we do science journalism is going to change ReportEarth, Chris Mooney, May 11, 2026.
- As tick bites surge, conspiracy theories follow The conspiracists are right about one thing: Ticks are getting worse. Grist, Zoya Teirstein, May 14, 2026.
Climate Law and Justice (2 articles)
- Why climate action stalls, despite widespread popular support The Conversation, Laurie Parsons, May 08, 2026.
- Changing climate law to prevent civil cases removes a key protection for NZ citizens The government’s plan to change the law to bar claims for harms from greenhouse gas emissions shuts down New Zealand’s most important climate tort case, meaning it will never be decided on its merits. The Conversation, Bjørn-Oliver Magsig, May 14, 2026.
Health Aspects of Climate Change (2 articles)
- How climate change could help hantavirus find more hosts Experts say extreme weather is boosting the odds that the pathogens carried by rodents will spill over into human populations. Grist, Zoya Teirstein, May 12, 2026.
- Hantavirus is a climate story Scientists tell HEATED the hantavirus outbreak is a warning that climate change is scrambling the boundaries between humans, wildlife, and disease. HEATED, Emily Atkin, May 14, 2026.
Miscellaneous (2 articles)
- 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #19 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 3, 2026 thru Sat, May 9, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, May 10, 2026.
- Trump`s EPA Seeks Looser Construction Rules for Gas Plants, Data Centers and Factories Changes would allow companies to begin more construction before an air permit is issued—ramping up the pressure for permit approval. Inside Climate News, Charles Paullin, May 12, 2026.
- How this climate conference secured a breakthrough Youtube, Simon Clark, May 7, 2026.
Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (1 article)
- Talking Shop: Trump's Embrace of Climate Denialism Youtube, Covering Climate Now, May 7, 2026.
Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions (1 article)
- But what about China' ‘But what about China?’ is a fair question. China is simultaneously the world’s largest emitter and the world’s leading ‘electrostate’. Climate Trunk, John Lang, May 10, 2026.
DeBriefed 15 April 2026: Trump-Xi talk energy | ‘Supercharged’ El Niño | India’s first ‘heat lounges’
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
ENERGY TALKS: Trump administration officials have raised the prospect of China buying more US oil in response to the disruption caused by the Iran war, following two days of talks between the leaders of the superpowers in Beijing, said Reuters. On Thursday, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC the nations had discussed China “buying more US energy”, adding that production from Alaska would be a “natural” for China. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported that Trump and Xi also agreed that the strait of Hormuz must remain open to “support the free flow of energy”.
CLIMATE ‘COOPERATION’: Ahead of the talks, the Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily published an article saying that addressing climate change requires “coordinated efforts and cooperation” between China and the US. State-run newspaper China Daily said that US-China cooperation on energy security and climate governance is “essential” because the two countries have “considerable influence over international institutions”. However, an article in Legal Planet said that the Trump-Xi meeting had no climate agenda, adding that the two countries are now moving in “radically different directions”.
El Niño extremes‘SUPERCHARGED’: From wildfires to heatwaves and flooding, scientists have warned that the El Niño weather pattern could “amplify climate extremes” in 2026, reported Climate Home News. There is an 82% chance of a “very strong” El Niño forming this year, according to the average of four weather forecasters cited by the Times. The Independent added that the phenomenon could be “supercharged” by another weather pattern – a positive Indian Ocean Dipole – raising the risks of fire, drought risks and other extreme weather events.
WORLD ON FIRE: Global fire outbreaks hit a “record high” in Africa, Asia and elsewhere this year, reported Reuters, with conditions expected to worsen to the “highest in recent history” if a strong El Niño “kicks in”. More than 150m hectares of land were damaged by fires from January to April – 20% more than the previous record – according to data compiled by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) research group cited by the newswire.
Around the world- ETHIOPIA EVS: Electric vehicles now account for 8% of Ethiopia’s car fleet as “soaring prices and fuel shortages compel” African countries to switch to “cleaner and cheaper transport”, according to the Associated Press.
- UK AID CUT: The UK has halved its most recent contribution to the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) as part of a government “shift from development aid to military spending”, according to Climate Home News. The UK is no longer the top donor to the GCF following the move, said Carbon Brief.
- TORT RETORT: Reuters reported that the New Zealand government plans to amend a key climate law, to prevent courts from holding private companies liable for climate harms. This would apply to “both current and future proceedings”, the newswire said, including a current case against six major emitters.
- RENEWABLE SECURITY: Military alliance NATO is “openly backing renewables and other non-fossil fuel sources of energy as key to the alliance’s security” despite US scepticism, reported Politico. The outlet covered a NATO-backed study that highlighted how imported fuels have been used as a “bargaining chip” in conflicts.
- NO INDIAN ‘LOCKDOWN’: India’s oil-and-gas minister “dismissed concerns of any imminent lockdown-like restrictions” after prime minister Narendra Modi “urged citizens” to adopt fuel-saving measures amid a global energy crisis, reported the Economic Times.
The volume of oil the world has lost over the past two months since Iran began its blockade of the strait of Hormuz following attacks by the US and Israel, according to Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser, quoted in Reuters.
Latest climate research- Antarctic sea ice levels have plummeted to “record-low anomalies” since 2015, with researchers calling it “one of the largest present-day climatic shifts in the Earth system” | Science Advances
- Rainfall reductions in the southern Amazon will occur at progressively lower levels of deforestation as the planet warms, indicating that “climate change amplifies the sensitivity of rainfall to forest loss” | Global Ecology and Biogeography
- Economic inequality adds more than 100,000 deaths to the total toll from heat and cold in Europe | Nature Health
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
CapturedContrary to claims by the UK car industry that demand is not high enough to meet the UK government’s sales targets for “zero emissions vehicles” (ZEVs), a new Carbon Brief factcheck found it has actually “overcomplied” with its mandate. The chart above shows the required (left) and achieved (right) share of ZEVs in total UK car sales in 2024, the latest figures available. “Flexibilities” (in light blue) include the sale of lower-emission petrol cars.
Spotlight Chennai’s gig workers race against the heatThis week, Carbon Brief visits one of India’s first air-conditioned lounges designed to help gig workers deal with extreme heat.
An air-conditioned lounge for gig workers in Chennai’s T Nagar shopping district. Credit: Ishan Tankha / ScorchedOn a single day in late April, 20 of the world’s hottest cities were all in India.
Chennai was not on the list this time, but is no stranger to high temperatures. In the south-eastern coastal capital of Tamil Nadu, extreme humidity and heat are inescapable facts of life.
“The heat is by no means manageable, but we have no choice but to deal with it,” said Mohammed S, a 29-year-old grocery platform delivery worker, speaking to Carbon Brief.
Last year, Chennai became India’s first ever city to roll out air-conditioned lounges for millions of gig workers, like Mohammed, navigating India’s increasingly hotter cities.
Lounge accessIn the dense shopping district of T Nagar – recognised as an “urban heat island” – studded with silk sari and jewellery shops, an unassuming oblong container-like structure stands out.
Gig workers leave their slippers outside the lounge. Credit: Ishan Tankha / ScorchedThrough the building’s tinted windows, workers wearing synthetic jerseys emblazoned with food delivery app logos are stretched out on wooden benches meant to seat 25 people.
The lounge has charging points for phones, a water cooler and a unisex toilet. It might not seem like much, but workers tell Carbon Brief that it has made a “huge difference” to their lives – even on a day when the air conditioner stopped working.
“Before this, life was very difficult,” said Mohammed. He continued:
“We would park our [electric] bikes and try to find a tree to sleep under, stop for tea and tea shop owners would tell us we couldn’t sit there for more than 10 minutes, try to rest in a building’s stairwell and be chased away, then try to find shade under a flyover. Now we can sit in the AC and avoid the worst of the heat.”
Dinesh, 27, said his day starts at dawn before the sun is up, picking up packages from companies in north Chennai – another critical heat hotspot.
For the next seven hours, there is no “off point” or breaks for Dinesh as apps rush deliveries.
Some of Chennai’s gig workers told Carbon Brief they try to avoid the worst of afternoon temperatures from noon to 3pm, but for many – especially migrant workers – sitting back in the lounge is not a choice they can afford. One of them explained:
“If you don’t have cash to cover your bills or have to send money back home, you head out into the heat for a 12-hour shift and hope for the best.”
Dinesh checks his orders in the gig worker’s lounge. Credit: Ishan Tankha / Scorched Feeling ‘gear’In Chennai, heat might be normalised, but it has its own vocabulary. Speaking to Carbon Brief, the city’s gig workers, auto rickshaw drivers and fish sellers used an all-encompassing term – “gear” – to describe their symptoms, including dizziness, exhaustion and nausea.
Last summer, researchers offered Delhi’s gig workers a Rs 200 (roughly £2) cash transfer on the first day of a heatwave, to provide them with a means to achieve “real-time” adaptation to heat risk. Workers who received a cash transfer reported fewer heat-related symptoms, according to the study.
Asked if they would accept similar incentives to stay home on 40C days, workers in the T Nagar lounge expressed disbelief. Dinesh – who also trains technicians on how to repair air conditioners to support his income – told Carbon Brief:
“They [the apps] offer us incentives to go out in the heat when there are fewer riders.”
Barring a few, none of the dozens of outdoor workers Carbon Brief spoke to had an air conditioner at home or in their hostels, making the lounge the only place they could cool down.
Watch, read, listenTHE BIG ‘LOSER’: Writing in Foreign Affairs, Princeton University’s Prof Benjamin Bardlow argued that Beijing “may emerge from the war in Iran as its winner – and Washington its ultimate loser”.
CARBON ‘KINGPIN’: A new podcast by Drilled followed Bruce Rastetter – a corn ethanol “kingpin-turned-carbon entrepreneur” from Iowa – now promoting biofuels and carbon-capture projects in Brazil.
OPEC ‘DRAMA KINGS’: An episode of the Polycrisis podcast, titled “Gulf drama kings”, dug into the UAE’s announcement that it was quitting oil producers’ cartel OPEC, asking whether this reflected “doom” for the group, geopolitical tensions, or “different beliefs” about the future of oil.
- 17 May: Cape Verde election
- 17-22 May: 13th session of the World Urban Forum, Baku, Azerbaijan
- 20-21 May:Copenhagen climate ministerial
- Greenpeace, communications and engagement co-head (climate) | Salary: £63,756-£67,644. Location: London
- Global Witness, deputy director of campaigns (one-year contract) | Salary: £75,886. Location: London
- Karolinska Institute, research assistant in climate attribution and health | Salary: Unknown. Location: Stockholm, Sweden
- Greenpeace South Asia, climate researcher | Salary: Unknown. Location: Colombo, Sri Lanka
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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Analysis: UK no longer top UN Green Climate Fund donor after latest aid cut
The UK is no longer the top contributor to the UN’s flagship Green Climate Fund (GCF), after the government announced that it only intends to honour half of its most recent pledge.
Amid wider cuts to its climate aid for developing countries, the UK informed the GCF in May that it will reduce its commitment for the 2024-27 period to £815m ($1.1bn).
In doing so, the Labour government is drastically cutting a Conservative pledge of £1.62bn ($2.16bn), hailed by former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s government as “the biggest single funding commitment the UK has made to help the world tackle climate change”.
This “record” pledge also meant the UK became the top GCF funder, after the Trump administration withdrew $4bn in pledged US funds in 2025.
Now, the UK follows the US in becoming the second major donor to cancel substantial funding, leaving aid experts concerned that other developed countries will follow suit.
As the chart below shows, the UK’s total past and promised contributions to the GCF have now dropped below those of Germany, France and Japan.
GCF pledges by top 10 donors. Dark bars indicate pledges from the initial resource mobilisation in 2014 and the first replenishment round in 2019, while light blue bars indicate pledges from the second replenishment round in 2023. Source: NRDC GCF pledge tracker.The GCF is the largest dedicated UN climate fund and is seen as a vital way of raising grant-based climate finance for developing countries. It oversees more than $20bn worth of funding across 354 projects and programmes.
Developed countries, such as the UK, are obliged under the Paris Agreement to provide climate finance. One of the main ways to do this is through specialised climate funds, such as the GCF.
However, despite countries committing to increase their climate finance over time, progress in scaling up GCF contributions between funding rounds has been gradual.
With its now-revoked £1.62bn pledge in 2023, the UK was among the donors that had increased its GCF pledging compared with the previous 2019 funding round.
The latest reduction means the UK will now provide around 45% less funding than it did during the 2019 round. This is the biggest reduction between rounds by any major donor, apart from the US.
In an email to the GCF board, reported by the Financial Times, the fund’s executive director Mafalda Duarte said the UK’s actions were “expected to have a material impact on the delivery” of the fund’s projects.
According to the newspaper, Duarte noted that the move came as the UK cuts its overall aid budget in order to “invest more in addressing growing security threats”.
In March, the UK government announced plans to spend “around £6bn” of its aid budget on climate projects in developing countries over the next three years.
Carbon Brief analysis suggests that this spending amounts to roughly halving the UK’s annual climate finance, when accounting changes and inflation are factored in.
Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began
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|Q&A: How the UK government aims to ‘break link between gas and electricity prices’
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|Factcheck: Nine false or misleading myths about North Sea oil and gas
Policy
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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #20 2026
The Perils of Climate Catastrophism: A Call to Situate Crisis and Change, Bickerstaff, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change
Catastrophic imaginaries are inextricably bound to how we think about climate change and also how we respond—individually and collectively—to the urgent challenges of achieving rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This advanced review reflects on, and problematises, the power and persistence of ideas about climate catastrophe. It is argued that this politically and culturally dominant framing of imminent planetary devastation impedes and constrains action on climate change. It is a position that underlines, I suggest, a need to rethink and better situate our narratives of, and relations to, climate crisis and emergency. I pursue this argument in four parts. First, I begin by introducing and theoretically contextualizing “environmental catastrophism”. Second, and following on, I address the ways in which the problem of climate change has become synonymous with imaginaries of apocalyptic catastrophism, tracing dominant tropes and discourses. In the third step I raise interconnected perils of the catastrophic gaze for climate action: the impossibility of solving a problem framed as a predominantly totalising whole-planet challenge; defeatism that displaces action to “total” and/or depoliticising solutions; and public despair around, and alienation from, climate action. Finally, and in response to these challenges, I make the case for a situated view of climate crisis and change—one that offers and embraces imaginaries that are fundamentally partial, located and positioned.
Unseen but increasing: recent changes in risk of extreme precipitation over Southern Africa and Southeast Asia, Perez et al., Weather and Climate Extremes
There is evidence that rainfall extremes have become more intense and frequent over the last few decades, but it is difficult to assess these changes due to the limitations of our short observational records. We use the UNprecedented Simulated Extreme ENsemble (UNSEEN) approach to (1) assess changes in extreme rainfall over Southern Africa and Southeast Asia over the last 40 years and (2) identify locations that have a high chance of breaking rainfall records. We find that extreme rainfall risk has already increased since 1981 during the rainy season in both regions, including a doubling of risk in some months for many major population centers such as Phnom Penh, Vientiane, Bangkok, Hanoi, Maseru, Johannesburg, Lilongwe, and Lusaka. The pattern of increasing risk of extreme rainfall is projected to increase further in the coming 20 years in the CMIP6 ensemble; yet UNSEEN estimates of changes from the last 20 years are already greater than these future projections in the Philippines, northern Mozambique, and northern Madagascar. Finally, we compare the UNSEEN ensemble to historical records to identify places that have “soft records” and are likely to see record-setting events. These places with increasing risks but no recent extremes are labeled as “sitting ducks” in today's climate. We find that much of Mozambique, the Philippines, and Laos would be considered “sitting ducks” for extreme precipitation in at least one month of the year. Disaster risk managers should use these types of large ensembles when estimating the risk of extremes in today's climate, in order to ensure that society is prepared for record breaking events. This approach can also be used for improving engineering design estimates of rainfall return periods and for stress-testing health system and disaster preparedness.
Facilitating permanent carbon storage through risk transfers? Analyzing the insurability of the carbon leakage liability, Spencer et al., Energy Research & Social Science
Geological storage of CO2 is expected to play a role in mitigating climate change, especially for carbon capture and storage (CCS) in hard-to-electrify sectors, and for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) under net-zero targets. One challenge of geological CO2 storage is the risk that CO2 later returns to the atmosphere. Policymakers aim to address this risk by imposing leakage liabilities on storage operators, potentially also mandating insurance cover. However, whether such liabilities are insurable is still open given the undeveloped state of the insurance market for this risk. Here, we adapt the Berliner (1982) framework from insurance economics to this question, to consider actuarial, market, and social factors that might constitute barriers to insurability. Due to the lack of a loss history, we systematically use the upstream oil & gas industry as an analogy. Combining expert workshops and techno-economic estimates, we find two barriers: the possibility of correlated material failures across the industry and gradual leakages, which will likely have to remain uninsured initially (though increased experience will likely improve the situation). We also find three general preconditions for insurability: appropriate care in site selection, robust regulations for information sharing and risk mitigation, and limited coverage periods to exclude CO2 price volatility. Overall, the insurability of CO2 leakage does not appear to be a roadblock for the deployment of CCS and CDR. The future price of CO2 emissions and removals, however, remains an important uncertainty. ‘In-kind’ insurances (based on reserve CO2 units) are a possible way out.
Dust Decline Amplifies High-Cloud Ice-to-Liquid Transition and Buffers the Radiative Feedback Under Warming, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters
The response of the cloud phase to global warming is a critical yet poorly constrained component of Earth's climate sensitivity. While rising temperatures drive a thermodynamic transition from ice to liquid clouds, the role of ice-nucleating particles in modulating this shift remains underexplored. Here, we provide evidence that the declining trend of mineral dust in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) may act as a microphysical amplifier of this transition. Satellite observations of high clouds (
Opposing transient and equilibrium effective radiative forcing from aerosol-cloud interactions, Dagan, Nature Communications
Aerosols influence clouds, and therefore Earth’s radiation budget, through processes that operate across multiple and interacting time scales, making aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) a persistent source of uncertainty in estimates of effective radiative forcing (ERF). Here we examine the time-dependent response of the local, convection-focused ERFACI using an ensemble of high-resolution simulations initialized from different atmospheric states and subjected to an instantaneous aerosol perturbation, together with simulations in which aerosol concentration changes with prescribed periods. We find that the transient ERFACI during the first ~ 2 days is positive, driven by rapid microphysical invigoration, enhanced high-cloud fraction, and increased longwave trapping. In contrast, the equilibrium ERFACI becomes negative as upper-tropospheric warming increases static stability and reduces anvil cloud fraction. As a result, the time-mean forcing depends on the ratio between the environmental adjustment time scale (τadj) and the aerosol-perturbation time scale (τaer). For intermediate regimes, where τaer is only moderately longer than τadj, the system exhibits pronounced hysteresis: ERFACI depends not only on the instantaneous aerosol loading but also on its recent history. These results imply that snapshot-based observational constraints and near-instantaneous-equilibrium convective parameterizations may systematically misestimate ERFACI.
From this week's government/NGO section:Pedal to the Metal 2026. The iron and steel industry’s coal lock-in crisis, Grigsby-Schulte et al., Global Energy Monitor
The authors present the newest annual survey of the current and developing global iron and steel plant fleet. The authors examine the status of the iron and steel sector compared to global decarbonization roadmaps and corporate and country-level net-zero pledges. Included in the survey are asset-level data on 1,293 iron and steel plants in 91 countries and nearly 700 operating and proposed mines worldwide. A closing window for transition With 2030 decarbonization deadlines approaching, the global iron and steel industry is running out of time to shift away from coal-based production methods. Continued investment in coal-based capacity and underinvestment in green hydrogen threaten net-zero targets. Now more than ever, it is crucial to disrupt emissions-intensive blast furnace developments and redirect resources to iron and steelmaking technologies that align with net-zero goals.Trust, Governance, and Climate Disasters in the Indo-Pacific, Sohail Akhtar, Toda Peace Institute
The author argues that climate emergencies generate epistemic stress: situations in which uncertainty and competing narratives disrupt shared understandings of risk and appropriate response. Drawing on recent bushfire events and subsequent reviews of disaster governance in Australia, the author shows how disagreements over climate attribution, institutional readiness, and political accountability can complicate emergency coordination and weaken public trust even where operational capacity remains strong. The author concludes with policy recommendations for Indo-Pacific governments, regional organizations, and international partners aimed at strengthening crisis communication, institutional credibility, and the capacity of democratic systems to manage contested knowledge during climate emergencies. 129 articles in 63 journals by 1077 contributing authorsPhysical science of climate change, effects
Changes in Wind Extremes Shaped the Summertime Weakening of the Eurasian Subtropical Westerly Jet, Li et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2025jd045904
Critical role of low cloud feedback in irreversible sea level rise, Wang et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-72898-4
Impact of the AMOC Weakening on Upper Troposphere/Lower Stratosphere Warming Over the Extratropical North Pacific, Joshi & Zhang, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122116
Stratospheric cooling and amplification of radiative forcing with rising carbon dioxide, Cohen et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-01965-8
The Role of Internal Variability in Springtime Arctic Amplification from 1980 to 2022, Gale et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0421.1
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Arctic amplification-induced intensification of planetary wave modulational instability: A simplified theory of enhanced large-scale waviness, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 10.1002/qj.4740 19 cites.
Observations of climate change, effects
Equatorward shift of marine heatwaves centroids in the Atlantic Ocean, Ji et al., npj Climate and Atmospheric Science Open Access 10.1038/s41612-026-01426-4
State of polar climate (2025), Ding et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2024.08.004
Unprecedented 2025 glacier mass loss in Pamir, Fan et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.04.018
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Human-induced intensified seasonal cycle of sea surface temperature, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-48381-3 36 cites.
Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects
A Climatology of Heat Domes Over North America, Loikith et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100913
Four decades of global surface albedo estimates in the third edition of the CLARA climate data record, Riihelä et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-16-1007-2024
The DLR CO2-equivalent estimator FlightClim v1.0: an easy-to-use estimation of per flight CO2 and non-CO2 climate effects, Bruder et al., elib (German Aerospace Center) pmh:oai:elib.dlr.de:217602
Unseen but increasing: recent changes in risk of extreme precipitation over Southern Africa and Southeast Asia, Perez et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100910
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Exploring the spatial and temporal changes of compound disasters: A case study in Gaoping River, Taiwan, Climate Risk Management, 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100617 4 cites.
Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects
Asymmetric Spring–Summer Responses of Interannual Dry–Wet Transitions in Eastern Asia and North America Under Global Warming, Yang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122510
Joint Risk Assessment of Humid Heatwave-Heavy Precipitation Compound Events in East China During the Late 21st Century, Yu et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70395
Levante and poniente winds in the Strait of Gibraltar: Present and future characterization using regional climate models, Ortega et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.109071
Observed and Projected Future Changes in Climate and Extremes in a Himalayan Watershed Based on CMIP6 Model Outputs, Phuyal et al., Journal of Hydrometeorology 10.1175/jhm-d-25-0175.1
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Projections of temperature and precipitation trends using CMhyd under CMIP6 scenarios: A case study of Iraq's Middle and West, Atmospheric Research, 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107470 31 cites.
Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection
Baseline Climate Variables for Earth System Modelling, Juckes et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-18-2639-2025
Conditional diffusion models for downscaling and bias correction of Earth system model precipitation, Aich et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-1791-2026
Integrating climate model ensembles for reliable regional drought assessment through redundancy control, Abbas et al., Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 10.1002/qj.70211
Modeling snowpack dynamics and surface energy budget in boreal and subarctic peatlands and forests, Nousu et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-18-231-2024
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Systematic and objective evaluation of Earth system models: PCMDI Metrics Package (PMP) version 3, Geoscientific model development, 10.5194/gmd-17-3919-2024 30 cites.
Cryosphere & climate change
A comprehensive database of thawing permafrost locations across Alaska: version 2.0.0, Webb et al., Earth system science data Open Access pdf 10.5194/essd-18-3147-2026
Acceleration of an Antarctic outlet glacier driven by surface meltwater input to the base, Sugiyama et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-72724-x
Compound drivers of Antarctic sea ice loss and Southern Ocean destratification, Narayanan et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeb0166
Decadal re-forecasts of glacier climatic mass balance, Laan et al., Leibniz Universität Hannover Open Access 10.15488/20255
Glacier surge activity over Svalbard from 1992 to 2025 interpreted using heritage satellite radar missions and Sentinel-1, Strozzi et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-1679-2026
Glacier velocity as a primary control on areal retreat and surface thinning across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its surrounding regions, Guo et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105528
Ice core reveals longest-ever continuous record of Earth’s climate, Castelvecchi, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-01523-7
Quantifying Asymmetries in the Societal Impact of Mass Loss From the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, Bolliger et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2024ef005914
The effect of the present-day imbalance on schematic and climate forced simulations of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse, Akker et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-1405-2026
Unprecedented 2025 glacier mass loss in Pamir, Fan et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.04.018
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
A Multifaceted Look at Garhwal Himalayan Glaciers: Quantifying Area Change, Retreat, and Mass Balance, and Its Controlling Parameters, Environment Development and Sustainability, 10.1007/s10668-024-04917-7 6 cites.
Sea level & climate change
Critical role of low cloud feedback in irreversible sea level rise, Wang et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-72898-4
Quantifying the Sea Level and Estuary Contributions to Changing High Water Levels in Four Major Australian Estuaries, Palmer et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef006175
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Storm surges and extreme sea levels: Review, establishment of model intercomparison and coordination of surge climate projection efforts (SurgeMIP)., Weather and Climate Extremes, 10.1016/j.wace.2024.100689 39 cites.
Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry
Impact of the temperature-cloud phase relationship on the simulated Arctic warming during the Last Interglacial, Arima et al., Climate of the past Open Access 10.5194/cp-22-891-2026
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Changes in monsoon precipitation in East Asia under a 2°C interglacial warming, Science Advances, 10.1126/sciadv.adm7694 26 cites.
Biology & climate change, related geochemistry
Autonomous Float Data Reveal Decoupled Trends in Chlorophyll and Stratification in the Indian Ocean, Ishaque et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023417
Biogeochemistry of climate driven shifts in Southern Ocean primary producers, Fisher et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-22-975-2025
Climate-driven degradation of marine foraging habitats for Adélie penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula, Liu et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105518
Climate-induced range shifts support local plant diversity but don’t reduce extinction risk, Wang et al., Science 10.1126/science.aea1676
Current and Future Potential Distribution of the Invasive Thrips Echinothrips americanus (Terebrantia: Thripidae) Under Global Climate Change, QingLing et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.73636
Deforestation-induced drying lowers Amazon climate threshold, Wunderling et al., Nature Open Access 10.1038/s41586-026-10456-0
Evaluating the protection status and exposure to warming of Caribbean reefs with high functional potential, Melo?Merino et al., Conservation Biology Open Access 10.1111/cobi.70302
Flash drought-driven forest gross primary productivity declines in China amplified by extreme heat, Sun et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105515
Forest tree fecundity declines as climate shifts, Foest et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02638-5
Future Drought Will Lead to a Decrease in Vegetation Resilience in China, Jiang et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007070
Increasing Mortality of Rare Tree Species Amplifies Extinction Risk in Tropical Forests Under Climate Change, He et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography 10.1111/geb.70235
Loss of competitive strength in European conifer species under climate change, Grünig et al., bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) Open Access 10.64898/2026.02.13.705703
Reorganization of Subtropical Phytoplankton Communities in the Warming Ocean, Xin et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 10.1029/2025jc022734
Scientists’ warning on the global destruction of rock outcrop ecosystems, Paula et al., Conservation Biology Open Access 10.1111/cobi.70316
Ten Strategies to Promote Climate Resilience and Sustainability of Global Forests, Wang et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70064
Variations in the temperature response of photosynthesis among nine common tree species planted in Singapore, Teo et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1738900
Vegetation responses to air dryness amplify future land surface warming, Green et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-73063-7
Vulnerability and Adaptations to Climate Change in EU Protected Areas: A Natura 2000 Managers’ perspective, Zavattoni et al., bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) Open Access pdf 10.64898/2025.12.19.695111
Warming-driven shifts in floral traits generate flower–pollinator size mismatch and decrease reproductive output, Dong et al., Ecology 10.1002/ecy.70368
Water-Regulated Carbon Cost–Benefit Drives Divergent Effective Rooting Depth Across the Greening Loess Plateau, Su et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122356
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Rapid climate change increases diversity and homogenizes composition of coastal fish at high latitudes, Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.17273 14 cites.
GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry
A Comprehensive Global Aquatic N2O Emission Database (GANED): Unravelling N2O Emission Patterns from Different Water Bodies, Nazir et al., Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.18442133
Carbon sequestration service in the Atlantic Ocean: an assessment from coastal to ocean ecosystems, Zunino et al., Earth-Science Reviews 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105536
Evolution and drivers of CO2 and carbon intensity in Malaysia, Su et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115364
Global methane emissions rebounded in 2024 despite a deceleration in atmospheric growth, Wang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-72764-3
Integrated climate effects on nitrogen cycles in global grasslands, Zheng et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aec5940
Microbial Controls on Carbon Pump Partitioning in the Subtropical North Atlantic: Stoichiometry and Nutrient Limitation Across a Basin-Scale Transect, Marx et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023638
Sentinel-5p Reveals Unexplained Large Wildfire Carbon Emissions in the Amazon in 2024, Laat et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl115123
Stronger Southern Ocean Anthropogenic Carbon Uptake in Eddying Ocean Simulations, Patara et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0198.1
The increasing impact of vegetation productivity on global wetland methane emissions, Wang et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105523
White Is a New Shade of Blue Carbon: A Case Study of a Traditional Salt Production Pond That is a Net Carbon Sink, Alexandre et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2025jg009016
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Global nitrous oxide emissions from livestock manure during 1890–2020: An IPCC tier 2 inventory, Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.17303 19 cites.
CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering
Facilitating permanent carbon storage through risk transfers? Analyzing the insurability of the carbon leakage liability, Spencer et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104746
On the Efficiency and Durability of Purposefully Sinking Seaweed Biomass as a Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Strategy, Sten et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007628
Short-term action is key for gigaton-scale Direct Air Capture by 2050, Zurbriggen et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-72691-3
The state of macroalgae carbon dioxide removal: insights from a methodology development team, III et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1761760
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Modeling direct air carbon capture and storage in a 1.5 °C climate future using historical analogs, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.2215679121 37 cites.
Decarbonization
Carbon-neutral Powertrains – Research into Non-fossil Energy Sources and Life Cycle Analyses, Tutsch, MTZ worldwide 10.1007/s38313-026-2194-y
EV-ready building codes and electric vehicle adoption, Lou & Niemeier, Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-72664-6
Offshore wind farms reshape ocean stratification and productivity differently in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, Maar et al., npj Ocean Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44183-026-00202-4
Potential and challenges for CDR in the European pulp and paper sector, Jordal et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1834276
Sustainable EV adoption with clustering and predictive modelling for optimal charging infrastructure in the West Midlands and North East UK, Cavus et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-43106-6
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
The roll-to-roll revolution to tackle the industrial leap for perovskite solar cells, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-48518-4 70 cites.
Geoengineering climate
A Climate Intervention Dynamical Emulator (CIDER) for scenario space exploration, Farley et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-1809-2026
Assessing the impact of solar climate intervention on future U.S. weather using a convection-permitting WRF model, Sun et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-2239-2026
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Opinion: A research roadmap for exploring atmospheric methane removal via iron salt aerosol, Atmospheric chemistry and physics, 10.5194/acp-24-5659-2024 9 cites.
Aerosols
Dust Decline Amplifies High-Cloud Ice-to-Liquid Transition and Buffers the Radiative Feedback Under Warming, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl121917
Effects of climate change on desert dust, Middleton & Goudie, Earth-Science Reviews 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105540
Nitric Oxide Radiative Relaxation Time: Damping Timescales of Lower Thermospheric Thermal Perturbations, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl117874
Opposing transient and equilibrium effective radiative forcing from aerosol-cloud interactions, Dagan, Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-72896-6
Strong global radiative effects from wildfire dark brown carbon, Xu et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-01972-9
Climate change communications & cognition
A technocognitive approach to detecting fallacies in climate misinformation, Zanartu et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-024-76139-w
Climate Creativity for Action: Conceptual Development and the Catalytic Effect of Hope., Spence & Burge, Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103075
Scientists as activists: An ethnography of the ‘critical moments’ in scientists’ transition to climate activism, Finnerty, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000828
The Perils of Climate Catastrophism: A Call to Situate Crisis and Change, Bickerstaff, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70062
The psychology of real-world collective climate action: A mixed-methods approach, Brouër et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103072
When Climate Anxiety Motivates Versus Paralyzes: A Conceptual Replication of the Inverted U-Shaped Relationship between Climate Anxiety and Pro-Environmental Behavior, Dijk et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103069
When Trust Is Good and Worrying Is Even Better. Trust in Science and Climate Change Specific Worries Are Linked to Policy Support and Pro-Environmental Behaviours., Nitschke et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103042
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Setting the agenda for climate assemblies. Trade-offs and guiding principles, Climate Policy, 10.1080/14693062.2024.2349824 15 cites.
Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change
Climate and ecological constraints of cultivating bioenergy crops for climate mitigation in tropical regions, Navarro et al., PNAS Nexus Open Access 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag123
Climate vulnerability and adaptation pathways among smallholder sheep farmers in the Drakensberg Grasslands of South Africa, Slayi et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1785998
Decarbonizing desert greenhouse crop production with direct air capture–based CO2 enrichment, Lopez-Reyes et al., npj Sustainable Agriculture Open Access 10.1038/s44264-026-00149-6
Engineering resilient food systems in a warming world, Woodrow, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-01250-z
Financial accounting of carbon forestry with data from Florida, Kärenlampi, Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1738771
Interdependent adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among rice farmers in northwest Bangladesh, Islam et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-51096-8
Renewable energy installation as a catalyst for sustainable and climate-resilient agricultural growth in Kenya, Masibayi et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115371
Scientists breed low-emission rice to fight climate change, You, Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02614-z
Thermal limits of estuarine amphipods and their implications for aquaculture production, Rodrigues et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108109
Warming winters and cultivar resilience in sweet cherry: agroclimatic requirements and future suitability under Mediterranean-continental conditions, Santolaria et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111138
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Organic food has lower environmental impacts per area unit and similar climate impacts per mass unit compared to conventional, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01415-6 27 cites.
Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change
Assessing the Role of Tropical Cyclones on Drought Characteristics in the Hurricane Region of the Americas Between 1983 and 2024, Herrera et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd045998
Climate Change Amplifies Rainfall Sensitivity to Deforestation in the Southern Amazon, Zhang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl119000
Dealing with water extremes: An exploration of conditions for transformative adaptation, Pahl?Wostl, Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103163
Dynamics and risk assessment of water conservation in a high-mountain river basin under climate change, Chai et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105527
From opinion to action: Impact of social networks and information policy on private adaptation to floods, Wagenblast et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104393
Global irrigation reservoirs are at a higher risk of water shortages, Shah et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03571-3
Global Vegetation Greening Is Exacerbating Soil Dryness, Qu et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70901
Joint Risk Assessment of Humid Heatwave-Heavy Precipitation Compound Events in East China During the Late 21st Century, Yu et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70395
Unseen but increasing: recent changes in risk of extreme precipitation over Southern Africa and Southeast Asia, Perez et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100910
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
California’s 2023 snow deluge: Contextualizing an extreme snow year against future climate change, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.2320600121 18 cites.
Climate change economics
Fixing carbon credits requires a new financing model, Probst & Egli, PNAS Nexus Open Access 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag117
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Tackling debt, biodiversity loss, and climate change, Science, 10.1126/science.ado7418 10 cites.
Climate change mitigation public policy research
Carbon markets rule change would harm mitigation and Indigenous peoples, Williamson et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02629-6
Climate governance overlooks the ocean: a structural limitation exposed at COP30, García-Soto, npj Ocean Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44183-026-00206-0
Evaluative governance for climate action in Australia, Kotarba-Morley et al., Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01814-x
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Are consumers ready to adopt electric vehicles? Analyzing the barriers and motivators associated with electric vehicle adoption in India: Policy implications for various stakeholders, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114173 34 cites.
Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research
American cities in a time of global environmental change: the case of the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative, Zaitchik et al., Environmental Research Infrastructure and Sustainability Open Access 10.1088/2634-4505/ae636e
Assessing vulnerability and risk of coastal settlements in The Gambia to windstorms: integrating socioeconomic and environmental dimensions, Dibba, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1741665
Climate resilience in Indian smart cities: Linking dry–hot extremes and urban vulnerability for sustainability, Sahu et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102922
Digital climate education for rural resilience: validation and effectiveness of an e-learning module for farmers in flood- and cyclone-prone regions of India, Gorai et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1756972
From opinion to action: Impact of social networks and information policy on private adaptation to floods, Wagenblast et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104393
From the Mediterranean to the Arctic: the climate change approaches of Mersin and Tromsø municipalities, Da??d?r, Euro-Mediterranean Journal for Environmental Integration 10.1007/s41207-026-01155-3
The climate justice implementation gap: are urban health and planning workforces trained for equitable climate adaptation?, Acuña-Rodríguez et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1827634
The importance of recognizing opportunities in climate change impacts, Carter, Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02626-9
Trees halve urban heat island effect globally but unequal benefits only modestly mitigate climate-change warming, McDonald et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-71825-x
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Linking the interplay of resilience, vulnerability, and adaptation to long-term changes in metropolitan spaces for climate-related disaster risk management, Climate Risk Management, 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100618 26 cites.
Climate change impacts on human health
Modelling the impact of climate on cholera: a case study of Kolkata, Shackleton et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-51415-z
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Indian Ocean temperature anomalies predict long-term global dengue trends, Science, 10.1126/science.adj4427 43 cites.
Climate change & geopolitics
Caribbean small island developing states and the climate change advisory opinions: engagement and potential use, Berry et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1782320
An analytical assessment of greenhouse gas impacts on HF propagation using the Appleton-Beynon approach, Zossi et al., Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 10.1016/j.jastp.2026.106825
Evidence of hydrological regime shifts associated with a major decades-long drought in West Africa, Peugeot et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-72648-6
Scientists as activists: An ethnography of the ‘critical moments’ in scientists’ transition to climate activism, Finnerty, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000828
Socioeconomic Disparities in Climate Change-Induced Compound Energy Droughts in China, Wang et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007598
World-leading climate centre takes Trump administration to court, Witze, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-01501-z
Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives
The future of plant extinction, McChesney et al., Phytochemistry 10.1016/j.phytochem.2007.04.032
The Paradox of Climate Justice, Isenhour, Local Environment 10.1080/13549839.2012.729570
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Just urban transitions: Toward a research agenda, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change, 10.1002/wcc.640 165 cites.
24/7 renewables: The economics of firm solar and wind, Dardour et al., International Renewable Energy Agency
The authors' analysis shows that the cost of firm renewable electricity has declined rapidly across all major technologies and markets. In high-quality solar and wind resource regions, co-located hybrid systems can already deliver round-the-clock electricity at costs competitive with - and in many cases below - those of new fossil-fuel generation. China currently defines the global cost floor, while costs in Brazil, India, South Africa, Australia, and the Gulf region are declining rapidly towards fossil-fuel cost parity. The authors identify key drivers of firm renewable costs – technology performance, resource quality and system configuration – and examine the policy levers that are proving decisive in translating cost competitiveness into deployment at scale. They conclude that the technologies are maturing, the costs are falling and the commercial demand is growing. The pace at which firm renewable electricity is deployed will be among the most consequential determinants of the global energy transition in the decade ahead. For two decades, the PJM region managed its electricity system in an era of relative stability. The Reliability Pricing Model, PJM’s capacity market, was built for that environment: a system with predictable, gradually changing load; a coal-to-gas fuel transition that could be managed over a years-long horizon; and a generation development timeline that aligned with the market’s three-year forward horizon. The PJM region is now navigating a convergence of three structural forces that have pushed the system into disequilibrium: an unprecedented surge in demand driven by the rapid expansion of large-load data centers and broader economy-wide electrification; the accelerated retirement of dispatchable generation due to environmental policy and economics; and significant supply chain and permitting frictions that have extended the time required to bring new resources online. The PJM Board of Managers directed PJM staff to undertake a holistic review of the capacity market design and investment incentives. The Board recognized that the market’s current price volatility – while economically rational – is placing unsustainable stress on the governmental compact that allows the market to function, and that the foundational assumptions of the Reliability Pricing Model design must be reexamined in a resource-constrained world. This white paper is PJM’s response to that directive.Homegrown Energy: A policy blueprint for energy affordability, Eberhard et al., Rewiring America
A coordinated set of policies can make whole-home electrification, rooftop solar, and battery storage affordable for 96 percent of eligible U.S. households, delivering $26,000 in average lifetime savings per home, or $1.5 trillion nationwide. Home electrification alone is affordable for roughly 40 percent of U.S. households. By reshaping incentives and economics to capture the value of household energy infrastructure, policymakers can shift affordability from 1 in 10 eligible households to more than 9 in 10. The authors identify six market-based policies that lower costs, bring in new capital, and ensure households are paid for the value they provide; reduce soft costs; require large new energy users to invest in distributed resources; enable inclusive utility investment; modernize rate design; redirecting gas infrastructure investment; and scale virtual power plants.Distributed Energy Can Unleash the Resilient, Affordable Grid of the Future, Lightbody et al., Pew Charitable Trusts
Distributed energy resources (DERs)—energy generation and storage technologies including rooftop solar, battery storage, smart appliances, and “managed” electric vehicle charging, which involves controlling when EVs are charged to account for demand on the grid—offer a low-cost, readily available, scalable solution to increased demand. To help address this demand, the authors identified three core DER policy goals and specific recommendations that can help decision-makers, including state elected officials and public utility regulators, begin the work of bringing DERs to scale nationwide; integrate DERs as core grid resources into utility planning, investment, and procurement decisions; reduce administrative, technical, and regulatory barriers to allow DERs to be permitted and granted grid access faster and at lower cost; and strengthen community resilience by using DER solutions to improve grid reliability.Watts Wasting Texas Water. How coal and gas power plants guzzle billions of gallons every year and how we can transition to a more secure water future, Lindsay Stafford Mader, Sierra Club
Texas is facing drought, water shortages, and declining river and stream flows in all reaches of the state. Amid these ongoing water crises, it is important to understand just how much water coal and gas power plants use every year, whereas renewable energy and battery storage barely use any. To determine the enormity of water resources dedicated to Texas power plants, the author analyzed water consumption numbers from the U.S. Energy Information Administration as well as state water rights data.Water Use Requirements for Data Centers in Texas, COMPASS Research Affiliates Program at the University of Texas at Austin
The authors address the urgent and growing need to understand and quantify the water footprint of data centers, alongside their escalating energy demands. Water has now emerged as a primary constraint in data center planning, particularly in regions vulnerable to drought, water stress, or infrastructure limitations. The adoption of water-intensive cooling systems, such as evaporative and hybrid technologies, while advantageous for energy efficiency, raises concerns over freshwater use and long-term sustainability. The authors position water not as a secondary input, but as a core engineering, environmental, and policy issue in the future of digital infrastructure.Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa, Muttitt et al., Oil Change International and Power Shift Africa
As global energy markets are rocked by conflict and geopolitical instability, the authors found that oil and gas production has failed to deliver economic development in Africa’s producing countries and is instead deepening vulnerability, inequality, and dependence. The authors use data from 13 producing countries in Africa and find that decades of extraction have failed to reduce poverty or drive economic growth, and instead are lining the pockets of an elite few.A New Phase for the U.S. Battery Industry. Policy Considerations to Sustain Momentum, Bridge Gaps, and Avoid Pitfalls, Ray Cai and Jane Nakano, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Drawing on extensive desk research and stakeholder interviews, the authors use their report to inform policy debates through evidence-based analysis of the complex dynamics that are shaping the industry at today’s critical inflection point. The authors focus on three central strategic questions: where are the most critical supply chain vulnerabilities, what should be the approach to international linkages, and how can innovation be aligned with industrialization?Offshore Wind: Status and Issues for the 119th Congress, Clark et al., Congressional Research Service
The U.S. offshore wind industry has faced economic challenges in recent years that have led to the postponement or cancellation of some projects. Projects also have faced lawsuits from coastal homeowners and preservationists, the fishing industry, tribes, and those concerned about potential impacts to marine wildlife. Recent federal policies toward U.S. offshore wind have shifted from those in place during the Biden Administration. President Trump has halted OCS wind leasing and permitting and directed other actions to reverse prior federal support for offshore wind. Also, in P.L. 119-21, the FY2025 budget reconciliation law, Congress limited offshore wind tax credits and rescinded unobligated balances for federally funded activities related to interregional and offshore wind electricity transmission. Congress continues to consider issues related to offshore wind leasing, permitting, transmission, tax credits, and related matters through oversight and legislation.Hydrogen Energy: Technologies Offer Potential Benefits but Face Challenges to Widespread Use, Fletcher et al., Government Accountability Office
Hydrogen energy technologies offer long-duration energy storage, increased transportation efficiencies, quiet operation, reduced air polluting emissions, and potentially broad availability. For example, hydrogen fuel cell power generation technologies could provide quiet, clean backup power to data centers and other large-scale operations during power outages. These generation technologies could increase overall electricity grid security by providing long-duration energy storage. Currently, hydrogen fuel cells provide about 0.03 percent of utility-scale electricity generation.Trust, Governance, and Climate Disasters in the Indo-Pacific, Sohail Akhtar, Toda Peace Institute
The author argues that climate emergencies generate epistemic stress: situations in which uncertainty and competing narratives disrupt shared understandings of risk and appropriate response. Drawing on recent bushfire events and subsequent reviews of disaster governance in Australia, the author shows how disagreements over climate attribution, institutional readiness, and political accountability can complicate emergency coordination and weaken public trust even where operational capacity remains strong. The author concludes with policy recommendations for Indo-Pacific governments, regional organizations, and international partners aimed at strengthening crisis communication, institutional credibility, and the capacity of democratic systems to manage contested knowledge during climate emergencies.Taiwan’s Climate Adaptation Leadership in the Caribbean: Technology, Capacity, and Strategic Cooperation, Hernandez-Roy et al., Center for Strategic and International Studies
Climate change represents an existential threat for Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS), where exposure to extreme climate events intersects with structural economic vulnerabilities, limited fiscal capacity, and high economic dependence on climate-sensitive sectors. As Caribbean states seek technical expertise in climate adaptation strategies such as water resilience, disaster preparedness, and agricultural security, Taiwan—itself an island—could be a natural partner with which to collaborate on innovative and impactful projects.Pedal to the Metal 2026. The iron and steel industry’s coal lock-in crisis, Grigsby-Schulte et al., Global Energy Monitor
The authors present the newest annual survey of the current and developing global iron and steel plant fleet. The authors examine the status of the iron and steel sector compared to global decarbonization roadmaps and corporate and country-level net-zero pledges. Included in the survey are asset-level data on 1,293 iron and steel plants in 91 countries and nearly 700 operating and proposed mines worldwide. A closing window for transition With 2030 decarbonization deadlines approaching, the global iron and steel industry is running out of time to shift away from coal-based production methods. Continued investment in coal-based capacity and underinvestment in green hydrogen threaten net-zero targets. Now more than ever, it is crucial to disrupt emissions-intensive blast furnace developments and redirect resources to iron and steelmaking technologies that align with net-zero goals About New ResearchClick here for the why and how of Skeptical Science New Research.
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Higher warming predictions for 2026 and 2027
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink
Back in December I provided some initial projections of where both 2026 and 2027 global mean surface temperatures might end up.
A lot has happened since then. We’ve gotten the first three months of data in for 20261 (and have a good sense of where April 2026 will end up in reanalysis data – see our Climate Dashboard for daily updates).
More importantly, models are converging on a doozy of an El Niño event developing in the latter part of 2026, with the latest multi-model median projection of a peak anomaly of 2.7C in the ENSO3.4 region of the tropical Pacific. While the prediction remains uncertain (we remain within the “spring predictability barrier” when its historically hard to predict ENSO2 development), this would put the 2026/2027 roughly on par with the “super” El Niño the world experienced in 2015/2016.
I’ve updated the models I use for both my 2026 and 2027 projections. I’ll go into the gory methodological details shortly, but the headline numbers are in the figure below: the estimate for 2026 has risen from 1.41C (with a range of 1.27C to 1.55C) to 1.46C (1.36C to 1.59C). The 2027 estimate has similarly increased from 1.57C (1.3C to 1.76C) to 1.61C (1.4C to 1.93C).
So what changed? Before the start of the year I was using a pretty simple regression model. It estimate what the annual temperature anomaly would be based on the prior year’s anomaly, the last month of the prior year, the predicted ENSO state over the next three months, as well as a year count (and year count squared) to reflect linear and non-linear aspects of the trend since 1970.
I’ve updated this to use the equation below, which includes the year count, prior year’s temperature anomaly, the anomaly over the year to date for 2026 (currently Jan-Mar), the latest month, the observed ENSO state over the year to date, and the forecasted ENSO state over the remainder of the year.3 The uncertainty in the 2026 prediction also accounts for the uncertainty in the ENSO forecast using a Monte Carlo sampling approach.4
Similarly, the original 2027 calculation was pretty ad hoc; I just took the 2026 estimate and added the current warming trend (0.026C per year) that we calculated in our Forster et al 2025 paper. I then added a range of possible boosts from El Niño ranging from 0C (no El Niño develops) to 0.2C (very strong El Niño), roughly encompassing the range we’ve seen across past events.
Now I’ve converted it into a proper regression model. It calculates the expected year-over-year change in temperatures based on the year count (reflecting the trend) and the ENSO forecast for the latter part of the year (September-December, reflecting the period over which the currently developing El Niño will likely peak).5 This is then added to the 2026 estimates, with their uncertainty (and the uncertainty in future ENSO forecast) propagated through using the same Monte Carlo approach. This actually slightly increases the error bars from the original 2027 estimate, reflecting the uncertainty in both the 2026 estimate and the El Niño forecast.
One way to test how well this approach works is to see how well it predicts year-over-year temperature changes during past strong El Nino events (e.g. with a peak >2C and a Sept-Dec average of >1.5C), as shown in the figure below:
In general the model does pretty well; it slightly underestimates the year-over-year increase in 1973, 1983, and 1998, gets 2016 pretty spot on, and slightly overestimates the increase between 2023 and 2024. This is, of course, contingent on where 2026 annual temperatures end up, so a warmer 2026 in this model would result in a warmer 2027.
We can also look at how well the model “hindcasts” past years by applying the 2026 prediction model to past years using the same year-to-date and temperature and ENSO values:
Overall the development of a strong El Niño event in 2026 (and its effects on 2027 temperatures) have bumped my predictions up a bit from where they were at the start of the year.
But 2026 remains more likely than not to end up as the second warmest year on record (~56% chance), but has a non-trial chance of being the warmest year (~26%) with a somewhat larger change (34%) of being above 1.5C.
2027, by contrast, is likely (~85% chance) to be the warmest year on record and has a 88% chance to be above 1.5C. My updated estimate central estimate (1.61C) remains a bit lower than Hansen’s (1.7C),6 but its consistent with the size of the year-over-year bumps we’ve seen in past strong El Niño events.
Update:A new set of ENSO runs came in this afternoon from CanSIPS, which previously set the lower bound on the ENSO forecast for 2026. The new update has notably higher estimates; these don’t change the central estimate (as the median across all ENSO model remains unchanged), but it reduces the lower end of the uncertainties in the error bars. I’ve updated the figures and text accordingly. 1 Here I’m using the average of NASA’s GISTEMP, NOAA’s GlobalTemp, Berkeley Earth, Hadley/UAE’s HadCRUT5, and Copernicus/ECMWF’s ERA5 as they are updated monthly and reasonably reflect the diversity across GMST datasets. 2 ENSO refers to El Niño Southern Oscillation, a term that encompasses both El Niño and La Niña conditions in the ENSO3.4 region of the tropical Pacific. 3 I also tested it with year count squared but the difference was minor – the prior year and year-to-date already captures a lot of the information about acceleration. 4 This involves calculating a probability distribution of future ENSO development across all the ensemble members of all the models with runs through the end of the year, and randomly sampling 1000 times from that distribution to see how it affects the results. 5 I also tried a variant using the peak El Niño forecast, but that was slightly less predictive. 6 And his team’s new estimate, just published today, that 2026 is on track to be the warmest year on record.A look back at ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ 20 years later
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
Al Gore’s climate documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” arrived in theaters 20 years ago, in May 2006. The film had a profound effect on the public’s awareness and understanding of climate change, a number of surveys found.
I count myself among those who were dramatically influenced by “An Inconvenient Truth.”
In 2006, the topic of climate change had not yet significantly breached the public consciousness. Despite having just embarked on a career as an environmental scientist and having recently completed my graduate studies with degrees in astrophysics and physics, I had only a vague notion about the problem of climate change before seeing the documentary.
I remember thinking as I left the theater, “If the science in this film is right, how is it possible that we’re not doing anything to stop climate change?” Answering this question put me on a path to becoming a climate journalist and educator.
The film was a watershed moment for me and countless others. It also retains cultural significance to this day. In an October 2025 episode of his podcast centered on climate change contrarianism, which has over 1 million views on YouTube, Joe Rogan and his guests mentioned Al Gore and his film a dozen times. That included Rogan’s claim that “What Al Gore predicted in this stupid movie, which is so far off. He thought we were all going to be dead today, right?”
Spoiler alert: That’s not right. Gore never said we would all be dead by now; Rogan made that up.
Read: Five ways Joe Rogan misleads listeners about climate change
For its 20th anniversary, I revisited the film. I found that its scientific overview was imperfect but predominantly accurate, and that despite worsening impacts, the world has made significant progress in addressing climate change over the ensuing two decades.
‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was right on the basic scienceMany climate science experts have reviewed “An Inconvenient Truth,” including University of Washington climate scientist Eric Steig, who in a 2008 paper wrote that although the film included some oversimplifications, “The portrayal of the science of climate change in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ is largely correct.”
Gore outlined the basic science underpinning climate change the same way I explain it to college students today: By burning vast amounts of fossil fuels, humans have increased the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That pollution traps more heat in Earth’s thin lower atmosphere, warming the planet’s surface.
When the film was released, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide had surpassed 380 parts per million, a level 36% higher than at any time in the prior 650,000 years.
To emphasize how high carbon dioxide levels could rise if fossil fuel consumption continued unabated, Gore climbed aboard a scissor lift.
“Within less than 50 years, it will be here,” he said, pointing to the top of a graph where projected concentrations reached around 500 parts per million.
Now 20 years later, carbon dioxide levels are approaching 430 parts per million, and as Gore suggested, remain on pace to reach 500 parts per million by 2056, barring successful efforts to slow their rise.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration over the past 800,000 years. (Data: NOAA Antarctic ice core compilation and Mauna Loa measurements. Graphic: Dana Nuccitelli)
Because carbon dioxide is the principal control knob governing Earth’s temperature, as a team of NASA climate scientists documented in a 2010 study, the carbon dioxide levels and temperature have hewed closely throughout the planet’s history. As Gore accurately explained, abrupt and dramatic spikes in carbon dioxide invariably cause global warming by trapping more heat.
Shrinking glaciersIn perhaps the most oversimplified section of the documentary, Gore reviewed the declines of various glaciers around the world.
One of the most common critiques of the film lies in Gore’s discussion of the glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro. It only lasted for 30 seconds, but Gore implied that global warming was to blame for their decline, asserting that “within the decade, there will be no more snows of Mount Kilimanjaro.”
In fact, several studies, including this 2004 paper, have found that a decline in local precipitation tied to changes in the Indian Ocean is the major cause of the mountain’s shrinking glaciers – of which some remnants remain today – although global warming is also a contributing factor.
Next, Gore claimed that within 15 years, Glacier National Park would become “the park formerly known as Glacier.”
One 2003 study did suggest that many of the glaciers in Glacier National Park could disappear by 2030 due to global warming, but fortunately, that has not quite borne out. Although the glaciers in the park continue to decline due to rising temperatures, a 2019 study estimated that it might take until 2100 for Glacier National Park to become glacierless.
But Gore was correct that global warming is causing the accelerating decline of many glaciers around the world, and that this shrinkage poses water security threats to the 2 billion people who rely on mountain glaciers for their water supply.
The amount of water stored in glaciers around the world, measured in meter water equivalent (m w.e.) has declined at an accelerating rate. (Source: World Glacier Monitoring Service)
Worsening extreme weatherGore also explored the links between climate change and extreme weather, describing a deadly 2003 European heat wave. A 2016 study estimated that global warming was responsible for about half the deaths in London and Paris caused by that heat wave. He also reviewed the devastating impacts of Hurricane Katrina, whose damages an analysis last year estimated climate change worsened by 25% or more.
A little later in the film, Gore outlined the threat that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation could collapse. This ocean conveyor belt transports warm and cool water through the Atlantic, Indian, and Southern Oceans. By moving warm water from near the equator to the North Atlantic, this ocean circulation helps keep northern Europe significantly warmer than it would otherwise be.
Gore explained that the last time this circulation collapsed, about 12,000 years ago – as a result of a flood of melting ice water at the end of the last ice age – temperatures in Europe plummeted. A study published last month found that the climate models that best match observational data are those that are the most pessimistic, suggesting that the circulation may seriously weaken this century to the point of potential collapse.
The film also included an overview of threats that sea level rise poses to coastal cities around the world. Ice melt from land-based glaciers and the polar ice sheets has increased over the ensuing two decades, causing the rate of sea level rise to accelerate since the documentary was filmed.
Gore also covered numerous other dangerous climate impacts, including the expanding range of infectious disease vectors like mosquitoes, the impact on species of shifting ecosystem ranges and the altered timing of seasons, and the bleaching of coral reefs and the threat it poses to marine ecosystems. All of these problems continue to worsen to this day.
More than 97% of studies agree: modern climate change is human-causedThe film described a memo from strategist Frank Luntz that had advised Republican politicians, “You need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”
In fact, by 2006, there was a strong scientific consensus that modern climate change was human-caused. In 2004, science historian Naomi Oreskes had published the first survey of the published climate science literature. Gore pointed out that in her sample of 928 peer-reviewed study abstracts, none disagreed with the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
In a 2013 paper, my colleagues and I updated and expanded upon Oreskes’ 2004 study. We examined nearly 12,000 abstracts of peer-reviewed climate studies and invited the authors to categorize their own papers. In both cases, we found that among peer-reviewed studies that took a position on the question, over 97% agreed that humans are responsible.
Then, in 2016, we published another paper in collaboration with Oreskes and other authors of climate consensus studies, concluding that “the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.”
More recent studies have found that the expert consensus likely exceeds 99% today, despite a few prominent figures still proclaiming it a hoax.
The results of nine climate consensus studies published between 2004 and 2021. (Source: Skeptical Science) Progress in climate policies and solutionsAt times, Gore seemed discouraged by the lack of progress in addressing climate change.
“I look around and look for really meaningful signs that we’re about to really change; I don’t see it right now,” he said. But he also expressed hope, saying, “I have faith that pretty soon, enough minds are changed that we cross a threshold.”
About a decade later, 175 countries signed the Paris climate agreement. Today, every nation in the world has ratified the agreement except Yemen, Iran, and Libya – and President Donald Trump recently withdrew the United States for the second time.
The International Energy Agency estimates that since 2015, climate and clean energy policies around the world have erased a full degree from Earth’s global warming trajectory. Before the Paris agreement, countries were on a path to release enough climate pollution to cause a catastrophic 3.5-4°C global warming by 2100; today, we’re on a path toward 2.5-3°C.
Read: New report has terrific news for the climate
It’s not yet enough to meet the Paris agreement’s target of limiting global warming to “well below 2°C,” but we still have the opportunity to further reduce emissions and future warming.
In the film, Gore visited China and described the country’s coal power plant growth as “enormous.” Today, that descriptor best fits the country’s clean energy deployment. As a result, China’s climate pollution has now been flat or falling for about two years, and its clean technology exports to countries around the world are surging. In its new Global Energy Review, the International Energy Agency said that “the world has entered the Age of Electricity,” with virtually all of electricity demand growth being met by clean sources.
In short, despite a few oversimplifications, the scientific descriptions in “An Inconvenient Truth” have largely withstood the test of time, and the climate impacts outlined in the film have continued to worsen in tandem with rising global temperatures. But international agreements, domestic climate policies, and accelerating deployments of ever-cheaper clean technologies have started to bend the emissions curve downward.
I think that if Al Gore’s 2006 self were to visit 2026, although more action is still needed to meet the Paris targets, he would be encouraged by the progress humanity has made in addressing the climate crisis.
LCAW 2026: Integrating Climate Risk into Investment Decisions and Risk Management: Roundtable for Investors
24 June | London
In partnership with MSCI, this roundtable will bring together experts from insurance, pension funds, and investment management firms for a discussion focusing on how to better integrate climate science into investment practices, prompted by the launch of Carbon Tracker’s latest report, Recalibrating Climate Risk.
Following an introduction by expert speakers, we’ll be discussing the methods asset owners are using to assess their exposure to climate risks and identify opportunities in the transition. Most importantly, we want to explore the barriers that are hindering the re-allocation of capital towards low-carbon sectors.
Meet the speakersActive participation is encouraged; we’ll be circulating discussion points in advance of the event. Join us to share your insights and hear from other asset owners about how what role climate scenario analysis is playing in informing investment strategies, what policy solutions are needed to drive investment in low-carbon sectors, and other key issues facing progressive asset owners.
The post LCAW 2026: Integrating Climate Risk into Investment Decisions and Risk Management: Roundtable for Investors appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.
Two videos about the Atlantic Meriodonal Overturning Circulation (AMOC)
These videos include personal musings and conclusions of the creators and climate scientists Dr. Adam Levy and Dr. Ella Gilbert. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
ClimateAdam - Our Oceans Are Tipped To Collapse: Can we still act?Climate change is driving a crucial ocean current close to collapse. As global warming heats our planet, it's slowing down the vast Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation - or AMOC. And scientists fear that it could reach a tipping point - effectively shutting down this ocean circulation, and causing rapid climate change and disasters across the world: brutally cold European winters; sea level surges in America; and disrupted monsoon rains. But what do we actually understand about our risks of an AMOC tipping point? How big are the risks as our climate changes? And can we still act to protect ourselves?
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
Dr Gilbz - This critical climate system is tipping…. Or is it?The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation - or AMOC - is one of the world's most vital ocean currents, transporting water, heat and carbon around the planet. It's part of the "global conveyor belt" that keeps our planet moving.
And scientists are warning that it could be weakening - with terrible consequences for humanity.
But... is it?? What's behind the contrasting headlines? Let's dig in
Support Dr Gilbz on patreon: https://patreon.com/Dr_Gilbz
2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #19
Climate Change Impacts (6 articles)
- The ramifications of record-shattering heat on the West`s ecosystems Not only did Western US locations set new March highs but many exceeded temperature records for May, according to Climate Central scientist Zachary Lab. Grist, Christine Peterson, May 02, 2026.
- Flooding in Chicago Is Getting Worse. Here`s Why. Over the past century in Chicago, the likelihood of heavy rainstorms has increased sevenfold. Inside Climate News, Brett Chase, May 04, 2026.
- `Point of no return`: New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level, study finds Louisiana’s cultural hotspot could be surrounded by Gulf of Mexico before end of this century, authors say The Guardian, Oliver Milman, May 04, 2026.
- Dangerous heavy rains are getting more likely and widespread Seven of the top 11 highest-volume precipitation events over the past 77 years have occurred just in the past 10 years. Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters, May 04, 2026.
- New Study Shows Risks of Amazon Deforestation. And Rewards of Protection. Researchers examined the combined effects of tree loss and global warming in an effort to better understand how and when an ecosystem collapse could unfold. NYT, Sachi Kitajima Mulkey, May 06, 2026.
- Our Oceans Are Tipped To Collapse: Can we still act? ClimateAdam on Youtube, Adam Levy, May 8, 2026.
Climate Science and Research (6 articles)
- Benjamin Santer: Speaking Science to Power Youtube, College of the Holy Cross, Mar 27, 2026.
- Climate scientist finds large errors in a global climate pollution database New research from Northern Arizona University found that a global greenhouse gas emissions database produced by the Climate TRACE consortium is underestimating vehicle carbon dioxide emissions in cities by an average of 70%. Phys.org, Gaby Clark, May 05, 2026.
- Climate models struggling to capture human impact on storm tracks Models are accurately capturing the impact of a warmer atmosphere holding more moisture, but struggling to represent the shift in atmospheric circulation patterns caused by human emissions, which ultimately determine where the rain falls. The Guardian, Kate Ravilious, May 06, 2026.
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #19 2026 Our regular weekly scan of scientific, NGO and government research publications on matters pertaining to climate change. Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack , May 07, 2026.
- Why fears are growing over the fate of a key Atlantic current Mounting evidence suggests the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current may be nearing a tipping point, though the research is far from certain. The Daily Climate, Nicola Jones, May 08, 2026.
- Antarctic sea ice defied global warming for decades - now, hidden ocean heat is breaking through 'Antarctica was long considered a part of the climate system expected to change slowly. The speed of the recent sea ice decline has therefore come as a shock.'' The Conversation, Aditya Narayanan, May 08, 2026.
Miscellaneous (5 articles)
- Two months in, the Iran war has changed the global energy system forever The conflict may be the beginning of the end of fossil fuel dominance and a clear opening for accelerated energy modernization. Grist, Jake Bittle, May 01, 2026.
- 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #18 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 26, 2026 thru Sat, May 2, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, May 3, 2026.
- Why we need to treat Earth like a spaceship 'On Earth, there is no mission control – only us.'' The Conversation, Chris Rapley, May 06, 2026.
- Faster slaughterhouse line speeds are increasingly a climate problem Worker safety, animal welfare and climate concerns overlap in ways that are not immediately obvious. The Daily Climate, EHN Curators, May 07, 2026.
- EGU2026 - Five days of virtual learning This is the diary our team member Bärbel Winkler wrote over the past week while participating online in a large scientific conference. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, May 9, 2026.
Climate Policy and Politics (3 articles)
- DeBriefed 1 May 2026: Countries chart path away from fossil fuels | China`s clean-tech surge | Global forest loss slows Countries attending a first-of-its-kind summit have walked away with plans to develop national “roadmaps” to move away from fossil fuels, along with new tools to address subsidies and carbon-intensive trade. Carbon Brief, Daisy Dunne, May 01, 2026.
- Hard choices test breakaway climate summit A first-of-its-kind conference that focused on phasing out fossil fuels now confronts the challenge of turning plans into policy. Politico, Sara Schonhardt, May 01, 2026.
- Trump’s NOAA cuts would save less than a day and a half of Iran War spending Administration's incoherent and/or ignorant national security policy exposed by funding priorities. Heated, Emily Atkin, May 7, 2026.
Climate Education and Communication (2 articles)
- Spiralling global temperatures A decade later... Climate Lab Book, Ed Hawkins, May 8, 2026.
- A look back at `An Inconvenient Truth,` 20 years later Al Gore’s famous documentary has mostly stood the test of time. Yale Climate Connections, Dana Nuccitelli, May 08, 2026.
Health Aspects of Climate Change (2 articles)
- Extreme heat is a growing threat to health, jobs and food security in southern Africa - study looks for practical solutions The Conversation, Jerome Amir Singh & Caradee Yael Wright, May 03, 2026.
- How climate change makes your allergies worse As pollen season worsens, allergies compound with other climate health hazards. Ars Technica, Keerti Gopal, May 08, 2026.
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (1 article)
- States are demanding property insurance records to study climate change State insurance regulators are undertaking the most comprehensive analysis of the nation’s battered property-insurance market to try to understand how climate change is affecting the price and availability of coverage. Poltico E&E Daily Climate, Saqib Rahim, May 01, 2026.
Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (1 article)
- Despite big storms, U.S. winters are still warming Events like the January 23rd storm capture headlines and attention, but they don’t occur often enough to outweigh the long-term influence of human-caused global warming on U.S. winter temperatures. climate.us, Rebecca Lindsey, Jan 01, 2031.
Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions (1 article)
- Fact brief - Were the 2022 whale deaths off the US East Coast caused by offshore wind development? No - The 2022 whale deaths have not been linked to offshore wind surveys or construction. Research has found no evidence of wind farms driving whale deaths, and responsibly developed wind farms avert systemic harms of fossil fuels. Skeptical Science, Sue Bin Park, May 4, 2026.
Climate Law and Justice (1 article)
- Event With Links to Oil Industry Teaches Judges "Healthy Skepticism" of Climate Science As congressional Republicans accuse climate scholars and lawyers of colluding to influence the judiciary, a symposium hosted by a center funded by the fossil fuel industry injects free market ideology into courts. ProPublica, Abrahm Lustgarten, May 02, 2026.
EGU2026 - Five days of virtual learning
This blog evolved over the week of May 4 to 8, 2026 when I was adding to it from day to day as time allowed. It may still see some updates even after fully published on our homepage as some more information becomes available.
This year's General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) took place from May 4 to 8 2026 both on premise in Vienna and online as a fully hybrid conference. This year, I had decided to join virtually, picking and chosing sessions I was interested in. This blog post is a compilation - a kind of personal diary - of the happenings in Vienna from my perspective.
All told, 21,117 abstracts were submitted for the conference back in January and this year’s programme included over 1,000 scientific sessions, 62 short courses, 16 keynote Union Symposia and Great Debates, 38 Medal and Award lectures, as well as the Job Centre, Artists in Residence, GeoCinema, Science-Policy events and much, much more.
As this post is fairly large, you can jump to the different days, via these links:
Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Summary
The already published prolog blog post contains a summary of what I had planned for the week. Let's see how well - or not - the plans match reality!
Monday, May 4The very first session I attended at this year's EGU conference was EOS1.1 Science and Society: Science Communication Practice, Research, and Reflection which started at 8:30 in the monring and lasted until lunchtime with a 30 minutes break in the middle.
Science communication includes the efforts of natural, physical and social scientists, communications professionals, and teams that communicate the process and values of science and scientific findings to non-specialist audiences outside of formal educational settings. The goals of science communication can include enhanced dialogue, understanding, awareness, enthusiasm, influencing sustainable behaviour change, improving decision making, and/or community building. Channels to facilitate science communication can include in-person interaction through teaching and outreach programs, and online through social media, mass media, podcasts, video, or other methods. This session invited presentations by individuals and teams on science communication practice, research, and reflection.
During this session we heard about many examples of science eduction and communication in various countries (Italy, Spain, Ireland, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium...), settings (schools, university, public outreach, prisons...) and topics (Climate change, natural hazards, polar science, geodesy...):
- Lorena Salgado - SmarTerrae: Applied scientific training in geoscience from the earliest educational stages
- Gabriele Weigelhofer - Interactive wetland education: Classroom materials following a constructivist instructional framework (Horizon Europe Restore4Life)
- Martin Sehnal - Scientific Storytelling in Geodesy: Using Cartoons, Videos, and Digital Platforms to Reach New Audiences
- Chiara Anzolini - Speculative Storytelling as a Tool for Biodiversity and Climate Communication
- Rob Butler - The Shear Zone Channel – reflections on sharing geological science on YouTube
- Reinout Verbeke - Planet Belgium: narrating the geological odyssey of a country through multimedia storytelling
- C. Nur Schuba - Using sequential art to communicate scientific ocean drilling
- Federica Flapp - “Signals from the climate in FVG”: a magazine enhancing climate awareness and bridging the gap between science and society at the regional level
- Rodrigo Martinez-Abarca - A guide to outreach geosciences on social media: the case of Divulgación Terróloga
- Maria del Socorro Fonseca Cerda - From Science to Practice: Co-Designing Windstorm Hazard & Risk Information for Dutch Portals
- Sandra Ricart - Co-Designed, Stakeholder-Driven Governance for the WEFE Nexus under Climate Extremes: Lessons from Lake Como, Italy
- Alex Lipp - www.SewageMap.co.uk and POOPy: Open-source tools for understanding and communicating the impacts of sewage pollution on waterways in real-time
- Tatiana Izquierdo - Access, verification, and trust in extreme weather events communication: age and discipline matter
- Thais Siqueira - From Landscape to Geohazard: Assessing volcanic hazard communication in Tenerife geosites
- Deniz Vural - From Network to Ecosystem: Reflecting on Early Career–Led Science Communication through APECS
- Carla Mateus - Prison talks: bringing climate change conversations into the Irish prisons
This session included my own presentation right in the middle before the coffee break where I talked about our website relaunch project as already mentioned in my prolog blog post. In the meantime, I created a "companion blog post" for my presentation which includes all the slides and accompanying text as well as a link to download the PDF-version.
The session ended for today - there'll be more tomorrow! - with Philip Heron giving the invited Katia and Maurice Krafft Award Lecture titled What we’ve learned from teaching people in prison to Think Like a Scientist. Here is a snippet from this abstract to give you some context
Scientific thinking requires the critical analysis of information, while science itself thrives on the diversity of ideas. Yet, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects have historically struggled to be inclusive and accessible to students from underrepresented communities - meaning we often miss a diversity of voices. Furthermore, STEM subjects have often been rigid in their teaching structure, creating barriers to education for students with more specific (or unrecognised) learning needs.
To address this, our science outreach course Think Like A Scientist was designed to improve critical thinking and encourage independent thought by applying adaptive education practices to create inclusive and accessible classroom environments. The program started in 2017 and has been applied in several different settings (e.g., schools and adult learning centres), but has mainly featured in prisons around the world (including England, Canada, Australia, and Spain).
In the afternoon I joined session EOS4.1 Geoethics: Linking Geoscience Knowledge, Ethical Responsibility, and Action. This session was created by merging EOS4.1 (26 abstracts) Geoethics: Linking Geoscience Knowledge, Ethical Responsibility, and Action, EOS 2.6 (9 abstracts) From crisis to action: Education and communication for climate, ocean, overshoot and geoethics and EOS4.2 (7 abstracts) Geoscience research and collaboration in times of geopolitical crises.
Geoscientists play a key role in providing essential information in decision-making processes that consider environmental, social, and economic consequences of geoscience work. Therefore, their responsibilities extend beyond scientific analysis alone. Global challenges, such as climate change, resource management, and disaster risk reduction, push geoscientists to expand their role beyond research and to engage ethically in public efforts.
Geoethics provides a framework for reflecting on the ethical, social, and cultural implications of geoscience in research, practice, and education, guiding responsible action for society and the environment. It also encourages the scientific community to move beyond purely technical solutions by embracing just, inclusive, and transformative approaches to socio-environmental issues.
Furthermore, science is inseparable from social and geopolitical contexts. These conditions shape what research is funded, whose knowledge is valued, with whom we collaborate, and who has access to conferences. As Earth and planetary scientists, we must consider the human and environmental consequences of our work. This is especially true in Earth observation, where many satellites have both scientific and military applications, and where scientific tools have at times enabled ecocide and resource exploitation under neocolonial systems.
This session will offer insights and reflections across a wide range of topics, from theoretical considerations to case studies, foster awareness and discussion of sensitive issues at the geoscience–society interface and explore how geoethics can guide responsible behavior and policies in the geosciences.
The nine presentations in the first half of the session covered a wide range of topics related to the field of geoethics. We heard about moral values in the scope of ecosystems and biodiversity, about creating a new curriculum for ethical awareness in Ghana, about respecting indegenous knowledge in Australia in the era of big data, about turning sustainability into practice, about a workers.coop in the UK creating data tools for scientists, about avoiding "impact washing", about the ethical usage of AI and LLMs, about the ongoing anthropocene debate and the needed ethical framework for climate intervention research:
- Jeannine G.M. de Caluwe - Ecological Moral Voluntarism is a Corollary of Ethical Education
- Samuel Nyarko - Paving the way for geoethics pedagogy in Ghana: what students’ geoethical reasoning reveals
- Simon Haberle - Humanising Natural History Collections: Putting CARE principles into practice in the geosciences in Australia
- Janne J. Salovaara - Critical Sustainability in Geosciences — A praxis
- Jacqueline Campbell - Worker Co-operative Research Laboratories; An Alternative Model for Ambitious Science
- Rosa Rantanen - Social impact or impact washing? The case for a deeper ethical understanding and concrete action
- Paul Cleverley - Fostering the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence in the Geosciences
- Emlyn Koster - The Anthropocene as Earth’s natural to unnatural history transition
- Billy Williams - An Ethical Framework for Climate Intervention Research: Keeping Pace with Rapidly Evolving Needs
After the coffee break we heard about the EU's high dependency on critical raw materials, how AGU responds in the U.S. with science being under threat by the current administration, about solar-radiation management concerns in Pakistan, about Climate Interactive's en-Roads simulator and how its utilized, about the game ClimarisQ, about the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's Antarctic Station Akademik Vernadsky, about the Palestine Space Institute and doing science in regions of war, about different measures scientific institutions are taking (or not) in case of armed conflicts and genocide:
- Ludwig Hermann - Four-pillar policy recommendation to increase the European Union’s critical raw material resilience
- Janice Lachance - Meeting the Moment: Sustaining Climate Science and Engagement in Shifting Policy Environments
- Abdul Waheed - Towards Inclusive and Ethical SRM Governance in Pakistan: Bridging Policy Gaps and Global South Representation
- Juliette Rooney-Varga - Interactive simulation with En-ROADS spurs climate action among decision-makers
- Davide Faranda - ClimarisQ: What can we learn by playing a game for climate education?
- Svitlana Krakovska - From Polar Science to Public Action: 30 Years of the Ukrainian Antarctic Station Akademik Vernadsky in Times of Polycrisis
- Divya M Persaud - Political Education in Science: Two Years of Palestine Space Institute
- Stefano Corradini - Beyond Scientific Neutrality: Ethical Responsibility and Geopolitical Accountability in Public Research Institutions
- Shahzad Gani - Best practices for geosciences in the time of crises
In this part of the session, I had the chance to tell participants about the results of the Skeptical Science experiment. Like with my other presentation you can read up on it in a companion article from where you can also download the PDF-version of my talk.
Before my presentation I had asked Pimnutcha Promduangsri to grab a few pictures onsite in Vienna to also get some impressions from how it looked like as seen in the conference room. Here is a compilation of some of the images Pim was kind enough to send over:
Tuesday, May 5Tuesday morning started at 8:30 with the 2nd half of EOS1.1 Science and Society: Science Communication Practice, Research, and Reflection and lasted until lunchtime with a 30 minutes break in the middle.
In the presentations before the coffee break, the speakers told us about projects in Switzerland, Hongkong, France, Japan, Greenland, Italy, the UK and the United States. We heard about projects related to food, rainfall, soil, caves, air quality, clean water and flood hydrology and how they were used in communication and outreach activities with the public.
- Alex Valach - Community outreach using positive sensory experiences: A taste of climate change
- Hermione Mok - Communicating Food and Climate: The Role of Science Communication for Engagement
- Auguste Gires - Enhancing awareness of the geophysical environment through a multisensory rainfall experience
- Keiko Mori - Appealing to the senses, long-run workshops and exhibitions on soil for museum visitors
- Gina E. Moseley - Science communication in Greenland: Experiences from the Kalaallit Nunaat Caves and Climate Outreach Project (KINDLE)
- Marta Galvagno - Engaging young audiences in climate change: moving beyond fear through active science communication
- Carly Reddington - Visualising historical changes in air pollution with the Air Quality Stripes
- Luisa Galgani - The Italian Citizen Science Observatory: a growing association open to collaboration to foster public participation and education in water research Europe-wide
- Lisa Gallagher - Learning, creating, and sharing: A science communication framework for water and climate education
- Linda Speight - Communication within the UK flood hydrology community: bridging the gaps between science and practice
After the coffee break we heard about AI-created virtual climate scientists, how generative AI could be utilized for paleontological communication, how some activism increases trust in climate scientists, how science communication and activism is impacted by authoritarianism and how knowledge can be made relevant for society as well as for individual choices. Last but not least, Joshua Howgeg gave the Angela Croome Award Lecture in which he talked about lessons for non-ficting writing based on his experience as a magazine editor.
- Corinne Brevik - Creating AI-driven Virtual Climate Scientists to introduce both students and the general public to climate science careers
- Luis Azevedo Rodrigues - Generative AI and 3D Digital Technologies for Paleontological Heritage Communication: An Epistemological Framework and Practical Applications
- Erik van Sebille - A little bit of activism increases trust in climate scientists
- Karsten Haustein - Science communication and academic activism in times of rising authoritarianism and Trumpism
- Rosa Rodríguez Gasén - From Knowledge Production to Societal Relevance in Earth Sciences
- Elena Claire Ricci - Expanding the Space of Climate Agency: From Individual Decisions to System Dynamics
- Joshua Howgeg - Sleepy cat and the cosmic dust: Lessons for non-fiction writing from 10 years as a magazine editor - Angela Croome Award Lecture
After the lunch break I joined short course SC3.4 Science Diplomacy: What is it and how to engage to learn more about the overlap between science and diplomacy. This course was convened by Lene Topp, Zsanett Greta Papp, Alfonso Acosta and Noel Baker who all gave short keynote about their connections with the topic. They were joined online by Jan Marco Müller who gave a short presentation about his path from geoscientists into science diplomacy at the European Commission.
Global challenges, such as climate change and natural hazards, are becoming increasingly complex and interdependent, and solutions have to be global in scope and based on a firm scientific understanding of the challenges we face. At the same time, Science and technology are playing an increasingly important role in a complex geopolitical landscape. In this difficult setting, scientific collaboration can not only be used to help address global challenges but also to foster international relations and build bridges across geopolitical divisions. Science diplomacy is a broad term used both to describe the various roles that science and researchers play in bridging geopolitical gaps and finding solutions to international issues, and also the study of how science intertwines with diplomacy in pursuing these goals.
During this Short Course, science diplomacy experts will introduce key science diplomacy concepts and outline the skills that are required to effectively engage in science diplomacy. They will also provide practical insights on how researchers can actively participate in science diplomacy, explore real-life examples of science diplomacy, and highlight resources where participants can learn more about science diplomacy moving forward.
Here are some of my take-aways from this course:
- Science and diplomacy are intricitely linked in that one informs the other and one is needed for the other and this goes both ways in each case
- The rise of populism and authoriatarianism are changing the landscape
- Geoscience has a lot of touchpoints with diplomacy
- Quote (Maria Leptin): "We don't ask our researchers to be diplomats - yet their excellent science naturally feeds into global policy."
- Nations retreat from multilateralism
- Nations put up barriers to international scientific collaboration
- Some challenge evidence-informed policymaking
- Scientific endeavours like turning a wetland into a protected area can have diplomatic implications if the water comes from across the border or if too much water is used for agriculture
- Right now, scientific spending often has to compete with defense spending
- Some institutions may be tempted to accept defense funding for "dual use" research
- Such "dual use research" could however make an institution's campus a military target in case of war
Resources linked in the presentation for anybody interested in learning more:
- EU Science Diplomacy Alliance
- Free online 8-module introduction course on Science Diplomacy
- 9 case studies on Science Diplomacy
- The World Academy of Sciences
- Towards a European Framework for Science Diplomacy (e.g. new EU report)
- Article: What is a Science Diplomat?
- Article: Building a Science Diplomacy Curriculum
- EGU GeoPolicy Blog: Science Diplomacy in a new Geopolitical order
- The Science Diplomat
After the afternoon coffee-break it was time for a fun but most likely challenging session for the authors: EOS1.6 - Up-Goer Five Challenge: Making Big Ideas Simpler by Talking About Them in Words We Use a Lot. The session was held in one the underground PICO sessions and unfortunately, the Zoom-sessions wasn't completely stable, so I didn't always get the full presentation.
Whether you thrill at the chance to tell taxi drivers and dinner-table companions about your research or want to hide every time someone asks, “What do you do?”, we offer an exciting and valuable challenge for you.
Inspired by the XKCD comic that describes the Saturn V Rocket using only the thousand most common words in English (https://xkcd.com/1133/), we ask speakers to present short (~5-minute) scientific talks using the same vocabulary (determined via the Up-Goer Five Text Editor: https://splasho.com/upgoer5). The talk is preferably about your own research but can also be about a general topic you are interested in.
Here are some examples for Up-Goer-Five lingo - can you guess what they describe (solutions below the image)?
- people-flying things
- sky water
- space eye in the sky
- black underground burn stuff
- computer pictures
- middle water
- cold part of the world with water
Solutions:
- people-flying things = airplanes
- sky water = rain
- space eye in the sky = satellite
- black underground burn stuff = coal & oil
- computer pictures = models
- middle water = Mediterranean Sea
- cold part of the world with water = Arctic
My day started with Union Symposium US6 - Climate change, morals, values and policies, convened by Noel Baker, Chloe Hill, Mario Scharfbillig, Emmanuel Salmon and Maria Vittoria Gargiulo:
The climate challenge is no longer only about understanding the Earth system, it is also about understanding ourselves as humans. As a global society, response to climate change information and climate action policies is shaped not only by scientific evidence, but also by moral values, cultural identities, religious beliefs, fears, and psychological dynamics. Attitudes that may appear irrational often reflect deeper questions of meaning, trust, and social belonging. How can scientists and governments communicate climate science in ways that resonate with diverse societies without resorting to manipulative tactics? How can decision-makers design ethical and inclusive policies that inspire meaningful action at individual, community, and societal levels?
This Union Symposium will bring together experts from multiple disciplines to explore these questions through both scientific research and practical experience. Speakers will examine the moral, psychological, cultural, and social dimensions that shape public engagement with climate change. Perspectives from religious traditions, as well as indigenous and marginalized communities, will broaden the dialogue and offer insights into how climate communication and policy can become more inclusive, trustworthy, and impactful.
The symposium started with an introduction by Dr. Mario Scharfbillig, who uses behavioural insights to improve evidence-informed policymaking and democratic processes in the EU. He first noted that there is broad global support for climate action but that this is not really well-known due to a perception gap leading people to consistently underestimate the willingness of others to act. This also holds true for politicians and there own voters.
People have different priorities dependent on whether the focus is on higher order values, personal values, values terminology, social identities or the big picture. People live in different worlds which can be caused by and/or lead to information overload, distorted reality, echo chambers or even echo platforms and a "fantasy-industrial complex".
Illustration based on JRC-Publication Values and Identities - a policymaker's guide
After this introduction, each panelist gave a 10-minute keynote to "set the stage" for the subsequent discussion.
Raffaella Russo is an economist and project manager working at the science-policy intcrface, focusing on the socio-cconomic impacts of climate risks, risk perception, and adaptation strategies. She is a member Of EGIYs Climate Hazards and Risks Task Force.
She started with a quote from the European Environement Agency: "Climate change is already impacting Europeans' daily lives and will continue to do for the foreseeable future. Europe is expected to get warmer, some regions getting drier, while others wetter. These changes will not only impact our health bu also the ecosystems we depend on. The EU is preparing to live with a changing climate through various adaptation measures."
She then gave a few examples illustrating the transition from isolated shocks to recurring and compoundng events happening in Italy just between 2023 and 2025. She pointed out that - while funding from the country and EU was allocated after the 2023 Emilia Romagne flooding - there is a need to strengthen the private sector involvement in climate adaptation programming. In addition, fragmentation has to be replaced by coordination in order to reach a whole-of-society approach to climate resilience.
Eli Mitchell-Larson is a climate advocate, policy entrepreneur, and Ph.D. researcher based at the University of Oxford. Eli currently advises the Climate Pathfinders Foundation, facilitating grants to advance carbon dioxide removal and next-generation climate interventions. He previously co-founded and served as Launch Director and Chief Scientist at Carbon Gap, Europe's leading NGO dedicated to responsibly scaling carbon dioxide removal.
He laid out five hypothesis related to climate advocacy [I updated the list after watching the recording]:
- For geoscientists there are no neutral choices. Every choice we make is politically relevant.
- Climate policy-advocacy is not a monolith, it can be behind the scenes, it can be slow, it can be measured, it can be injecting expertise where needed.
- Engaging with climate policy is not as challenging or isolating as a lot of researchers may fear.
- Engaging with climate policy makes you a better scientist.
- Geoscientists are uniquely suited to be climate policy advocates.
Dr. Gabriel Filippelli is the Chancellor's Professor, Director of the Center for Urban Health, Executive Directorr Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University in the United States. He started his keynote with an image of the Keeling Curve which is a "5-alarm fire" for scientists but doesn't really mean much for people you might meet in a train or on the street.
Individuals care about concrete instead of abstract things (e.g. fuel prices vs. polar bears) and there's therefore a need to change the message. Compare "things" like energy infrastructure on equal footing and with concrete numbers, so for example point out the noise and pollution caused by an oil refinery to that of a solar farm. You may also need to change the messenger. So, instead of having a climate scientist talk with a local community, train students to become "Climate Fellows" who can then work towards making their neighbourhood climate resilient. This also provides an opportunity for the students, many of whom later work in sustainability and environmental careers.
Emelina Corrales Cordero is a Costa Rican marine biologist, environmental consultant, and executive coach With over 20 years of experience in marine conservation and climate action. She integrates science, mindfulness—rooted in the Plum Village tradition— and leadership to support leaders navigating eco-anxiety while sustaining purposeful action. She is the co-creator of Politics of Being, author of Grandmother Ocean Speaks, and was awarded the French Senate Medal of Honor in 2025.
After a short meditation exercise, Emelina introduced us to "The Mediator, The Warrior and The Artist" to help with navigating geological and biological timescales. She started her keynote with a quote from Christine Wamsler et al. (2019): "Transformative change toward sustainability depends on changes in inner dimension such as: beliefs, values and worldviews.". This was followed by a quote from Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn: "There are two dimensions to life, and we shall be able to touch both. One is like a wave and we call it the historical dimension. The other is like water and we call it the ultimate dimension."
Emelina Corrales ended her keynote with reciting her poem "All Waters: The Ocean of Life" which you can read on her website.
After these diverse keynotes, the discussion was opened to questions from the audienence and many participants made good use of this opportunity. It was tricky to capture all the questions and answers, so here are just a few notes:
- How can those who protect the environment be better protected? Response was along the lines of making their voices heard, don't visit countries where activists are getting persecuted or even killed.
- Focus on dialog instead of persuation
- Ask people questions and really listen to their replies.
- What ONE advice should high school teachers give their students?
- Take care of what you do in every day life.
- Get involved and vote!
- Take them outside
- Put down the phone!
The session was recorded and if/when the video is made publicly available on Youtube, I'll add the link here. In the meantime, this compilation gives an idea of what all was covered in this symposia:
After the lunch break I had planned to join short course SC3.13 - Get your writing right: A hands-on, participatory workshop to help improve writing skills, but it turned out that this was only available onsite in Vienna, so I couldn't join it virtually. Poking around in the program for an alternative, I noticed one of the science sessions and joined ITS2.1/CL0.7 - Compound weather and climate events instead.
High-impact climate and weather events typically result from the interaction of multiple climate and weather drivers, as well as vulnerability and exposure, across various spatial and temporal scales. Such compound events often cause more severe socio-economic impacts than single-hazard events, rendering traditional univariate extreme event analyses and risk assessment techniques insufficient. It is, therefore, crucial to develop new methodologies that account for the possible interaction of multiple physical and societal drivers when analyzing high-impact events under present and future conditions. This session aims to address several challenges and topics.
These include: (1) identifying the compounding drivers, including physical drivers (e.g., modes of variability) and/or drivers of vulnerability and exposure, of the most impactful events; (2) Developing methods to better shape the definition and classification of compound events, i.e. legitimate the ‘cut-offs’ in the considered number of hazard types or variables to ultimately disentangle enough information for decision-making; (3) Understanding whether and how often novel compound events, including record-shattering events, will emerge in the future; (4) Explicitly addressing and communicating uncertainties in present-day and future assessments (e.g., via climate storylines/scenarios); (5) Disentangling the contribution of climate change in recently observed events and future projections (attribution); (6) Employing novel Single Model Initial-condition Large Ensemble simulations, which provide hundreds to thousands of years of plausible weather, to better study compound events. (7) Developing novel statistical methods (e.g., machine learning, artificial intelligence, and climate model emulators) for studying compound events; (8) Assessing the weather forecast skill for compound events at different temporal scales; (9) Evaluating the performance of novel statistical methods, climate and impact models, in representing compound events and developing novel methods for constraining/reducing uncertainties (e.g., multivariate bias correction and observational constraints); and (10) engaging with stakeholders to ensure the relevance of the aforementioned analyses.
From the description this seemed to be a scientific session which didn't require too much prior knowledge and this turned out to be true. Sonia Seneviratne introduced the topic with a longer than usual presentation for these oral sessions to explain what the purpose and main focus was. Compound extreme events happen when for example a flood event follows quickly after a drought event, or when several of these events happen close after or to each other, limiting resources for help and clean-up activities. These events can come with high costs in both lives lost and money.
The authors for example talked about a need to adapt to larger scale drought and to ensure that water is still available where and when it is needed, about the risks extreme humid heatwaves pose for human health, wether there are detectable trends in soil moisture, how marine and terrestrial heatwaves are connected, that marine heatwaves are happening more frequently, are getting more intense and last longer, that heatwaves often coincide with river-low-flows (less water flowing downstream), that rivers can get too warm for cooling nuclear power plants, that low-flow events have from the local to a European scale and that climate extremes like heatwaves and extreme floods are happening with less time in between in Pakistan.
- Sonia I. Seneviratne - Compound extreme events in a warming climate: Implications for climate change adaptation and mitigation
- Manuela I. Brunner - Hydrological drought but not flood synchronicity increases over Europe
- Jian Fang - Increasing risk of global compound humid heatwaves and the impacts of antecedent precipitation
- Takumi Therville - Drivers of compound drought-heatwave events: assessments of univariate extremes and causal soil moisture-temperature feedback
- Fabíola Silva - Connecting Marine and Terrestrial Extremes: Oceanic Drivers of Temperature and Precipitation in Europe
- Name - More frequent and intense compound low-flow and heatwave events in European rivers since 1960
- Sumayya Ijaz - Historical Evidence of Compound Heatwave and Extreme Precipitation in Pakistan, 1980-2024
As my last session for the day I joined PICO EOS1.3 - Games for Geoscience showcasing many creative ways of how to turn science into fun and interesting learning experiences. The session was convened by Christopher Skinner, Rolf Hut, Elizabeth Lewis, Lisa Gallagher and Maria Elena Orduna Alegria. As is typical for a PICO session, presenters only had 2 minutes for their pitch during the first part of the session and afterwards moved to their individual screens for more detailed discussions.
Games have the power to ignite imaginations and place you in someone else’s shoes or situation, often forcing you into making decisions from perspectives other than your own. This makes them powerful tools for communication, through use in outreach, disseminating research, in education and teaching at all levels, and as a method to train the public, practitioners, and decision-makers in order to build environmental resilience.
Games can also inspire innovative and fun approaches to learning. Gamification and game-based approaches add an extra spark of engagement and interaction with a topic. Gaming technology (e.g. virtual reality) can transport and immerse people into new worlds providing fascinating and otherwise impossible experiences for learners.
The 2-minute pitches covered all sorts of games: card games, board games, role plays, simulations, planning games, escape games and digital games. They also touched many topical areas like natural hazards (think: mud slides or earth quakes), resource management (think: aquifers in danger of drying up), climate resilient planning, policy simulations, geothermal energy, saving oceans, climate change and mitigation and more!
- Noemi Mannucci - Playback to the Future: a card game for inclusive engagement with environmental hazards
- Guillemette Legrand - Model Fatigue: role-playing climate infrastructural imaginaries
- Blair Schneider - Ogallala: A New Educational Geoscience Game Designed to Teach Groundwater Resource Management in Agriculture
- Silvia De Angeli - Habit’Action: a serious game approach to exploring human habitability under Climate Change in mid-mountain communities
- Silvio Kmetyko - Moving Mountains: A Board Game to Communicate the Risks of Landslides in High Mountain Terrain
- Emanuele Intrieri - Earthvism - Dangers and Dwellers: a project to promote civic engagement through a board game on geological hazards
- Pierre-Antoine Versini - From Play to Planning: Récré'Action, a Serious Game for Climate-Resilient Schoolyards
- David Crookall - A policy simulation on sea level rise in the SIDSs: Come help build it
- Marek Götsch - Escape the Quake – an educational escape room on geothermal energy and associated risk of induced seismicity
- Jan Steinhauser - Hotspot Earth: a climate action game
- Priscilla Le Mézo - Climat Tic Tac (Climate Tick-Tock) Ocean: playing together to save our oceans and coasts
- Ivan Miranda Moral - Soil Guardians: A visual and accessible digital game for learning soil functions
- Hanna Pfeffer - (Un)Real Landslides: Game Engine Technologies for Process Simulation and Communication
- Jenny Bjordal - The Climate Casino: Teaching Climate Change and Mitigation Through Play
- Alexis Johnson - Building Geologic Maps and Models in Minecraft for Use in Early Education
As the first session I joined short course SC3.2 - Instruments and Initiatives for Policy Engagement convened by Erika von Schneidemesser, Zsanett Greta Papp, Chloe Hill and Alice Albertini
Are you keen to see your research results integrated into decision-making but don’t know where to start? Science for policy can be very rewarding, but some basic considerations for engaging in science-policy can help you get your foot in the door or up your level of impact. A basic introduction that provides some tips for engagement will be followed up with short impulse talks from a panel of experts, highlighting different opportunities for policy engagement and the skills that got them there. It will also include teasers for different existing toolkits (e.g., Sci-4-Pol Competence Framework) and training opportunities (e.g., Science-Policy Pairing Scheme, or IEEP-EGU mentorship scheme) to boost your science for policy engagement skills. The session will end with an open Q&A with the panel.
This short course started with Zsanett Greta Papp giving us an overview of what all EGU offers for scientists who might want to get into the wide field of Science for Policy. Detailed information is available in this EGU blog post from 2024: GeoPolicy: 10 things that you can do to start engaging with policymaking today and this flyer lists them all:
Florian Schwendinger then told us about his experiences with working in the field of Science for Policy. He mentioned that you need quite a lot of different competencies and that you have to be prepared for "information overload" because you'll need to collect it, sift through it and then interpret and summarize it for the policy maker you are working with. You need to be aware of the policy implications the information has and understand the context and different timelines you are working in. You need to invest time in order to build trust, you need to understand available support structures and the different attitudes involved. And most important of all: don't fall for the myth that policy makers are bound to ignore scientific findings! If you manage to make information accessible and legible for them, chances are good that they'll take it into account.
Next Nicole Arbour enthusiastically (and without slides) told us about non-traditional was to engage in Science for Policy. One of the first things she mentioned was that soft skills - contrary to what some believe - are very important in this area where science and policy overlap and interact. Active listening is especially relevant as is building a network by meeting as many people at receptions as possible (even if that is not your favorite kind of event). She for example regularly organizes what she called "Science parties" where she brings in a scientist prepared to give a 15-minute keynote - without scientifc charts or error bars - for invited policy makers. In addition, she encouraged scientists to write op-eds (you never know who reads those, but they can have a direct impact on policy), go on podcasts, join advisory boards and accept expert roles.
As the last speaker of this short course Alice Albertine explained the new mentoring program set up by EGU and the Institute for European Environment Policy (IEEP) of which she was the first mentee. This mentoring scheme is a 12-month flexible, hybrid programme for early and mid-career researchers who have completed a PhD. The objectives are to gain experience in a non-academic sector, broaden the mentee’s professional network, develop/increase an understanding of the European policy landscape, enhance their science for policy skills, and learn about how they and their institutions can increase the policy impact of their research. Activities include contributing to existing IEEP projects and publications, attend IEEP events and networking. Alice pointed out the human factor is very important and that helps to engage with many teams even those not directly linked to your project.
To learn more about Science for Policy, here are a few links:
- European Commission - Competence Framework ‘Science for Policy’ for researchers
- European Commission - Smart4Policy: Reflect about your work on policy!
- European Union Academy - Science for Policy - Maximise your Policy Impact
- EGU - Subscribe to the Newsletter
After the coffee break it was time for short course SC3.3 - New Toolkits – the destabilisation of science and what we can do about it convened by Lene Topp, Zsanett Greta Papp, Erika von Schneidemesser and Chloe Hill:
Science is increasingly under pressure from political polarisation, misinformation, and declining public trust. These dynamics not only destabilise scientific communication but also challenge the ability of researchers to engage effectively with society and policymakers. To navigate this landscape, scientists and science communicators are developing new “toolkits” – practical methods, frameworks, and strategies – that support resilience, credibility, and impact.
This short course will introduce participants to a set of emerging toolkits designed over the coming year, focusing on how researchers can strengthen the role of science in public discourse and policy. The session will explore key questions: How can scientists better anticipate and counter misinformation? Which communication strategies foster trust across diverse audiences? What can we learn from cross-disciplinary and international experiences in addressing science denial and disinformation campaigns?
The invited speakers gave short keynotes to set the stage for the course:
Sheena Cruickshank is a science communicator, immunologist, and Professor in Biomedical Sciences and Public Engagement at the University of Manchester. During the COVID-pandemic she learned a lot about how important it is to communicate science effectively and to build trust with communities you work with. She trained communicators from communities of how to translate scientific jargon and to give them the necessary vocabulary and toolkits. She also stressed the importance of what she called the "Five C's":
- Confidence and trust in the people making vaccines, the science, etc
- Complacency considers whether people feel complacent regarding risks of infection vs vaccine
- Convenience is how easy is it to get vaccinated
- Communication is about how clear the communication is and if it is in the right language and accessible
- Context considers cultural contexts and barriers like e.g. whether there is historical mistrust in a group
George N. Georgarakis is the Moritz Schlick Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Political Communication in the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna. Together with a team he conducted research into how misinformation spreads online and what options exist to decrease sharing of false information and increase the sharing of true content. They found that a lot of misinformation is shared by actual people and not by bots, that political motivation, heuristics (mental shortcuts) and accuracy neglect are some of the reasons for this.
He mentioned various forms of interventions like debunking, pre-bunking and credibility lables, or asking people actively to not share false information. They found that the interventions didn't increase polarization with results replicated in several countries already.
Matthias Fejes is the Co-founder of Scicomm-Support, TUD Dresden University of Technology spokesperson, and member of the executive board of the German Association for University Communication. He introduced participants to the Scicomm-Support platform which is a central point of contact for scientists if they get attacked or harrassed. He explained the four different dimensions of hostility towards science, namely anti-science, ingorance about science, science skeptisim and denial of science.
He gave some pointers of how to recognize the situation (what it is, whether or not it's dynamic, what happened, who should be contacted), what the context of the situation is (social media posts, threads via phone, email or letters), which information can be found online about you, what are the options (refute, confront, ignore, criminal prosecution).
The subsequent discussion touched on topics like necessary smarter regulation of platforms; they may need to be forced to bring fact-checking back. Everybody needs to be mindful of self-care and resilience. The course ended with some tips for attacked or harrassed scientists:
- whenever available get prevention training
- be aware about how sensitive your research topic is
- draw on the academic community for support
- report incidents to police
- but pick your battles and make use of the block option online
After lunch, another short course was on the menu: SC3.10 - Elevate your Pitch: Developing Engaging Short Scientific Presentations convened by Antara Dasgupta, Hannah Cloke, Hazel Gibson and Simon Clark. This was a neat mixture of input from the conveners and a practical exercises for 1-minutes pitches with getting feedback on.
The scientific communication landscape in the digital era is rapidly becoming all about effectively delivering ideas in brief. As scientific conferences move from longer physical meetings to more condensed hybrid formats, not only are short presentations necessary for pitching yourself to senior scientists or your next entrepreneurial venture to Venture Capitalists, but also for promoting your research. The opportunities of networking rarely reveal themselves, unless you are able to tell a brief, informative, and compelling story about you and your research.
It is truly an art to engage people through these short presentations and ignite a fire in their hearts, which will burn long enough for them to remember you and reach out to you later about relevant opportunities. While practice makes perfect is the mantra for delivering power-packed short presentations, there are several tricks to make your content stand out and set yourself apart from the crowd.
In this hybrid format course, we will bring together ideas and tips from years of sci-comm experience to provide you a one stop shop with the tricks of the trade. Finally, a hands-on exercise where participants will receive structured feedback on all aspects of their talk will help solidify the learning outcomes.
In the first part of the session, Antara Dasgupta walked us through some tips about succesful presenting:
- Ground yourself before giving a talk (try a "power pose" like "The Cormorant")
- Concentrate on a good pitch: clarity, conficence, delivery
- Simple story-telling is a key to a killer pitch, so channel your inner story teller
- Know your audience
- Record yourself for effective practicing
- Own your mistakes (everybody makes them!)
- Identify your stumbling blocks, words you have problems with and if need be replace them
- Be careful with jargon and acronyms - even fellow scientists may not know what they mean if they work in a different field
- Talk to the audience not the floor or screen
- Be careful with reading from a script as veering off from it, may trip you up
This theoretical section was then followed by an exercise where on-site participants split into pairs to prepare and practice a 1-minute pitch. Online participants were encouraged to do this as well, albeit on their own. Volunteers had a chance to give their pitches in the room after about 20 minutes preparation and some did. So, we heard from a meteorologist who keeps the planet safe by forecasting "space weather" or about how wind turbines "feel" about their job and a few more.
I used the opportunity for a quick pitch about the Cranky Uncle game, recycling parts from a PICO-session I gave in 2022. Based on the reactions from the room - I did hear some chuckling at the expected places - and the feedback provided, it came across quite well.
I'd like to briefly introduce you to Cranky Uncle, a critical thinking game developed by John Cook to build resilience against climate and other misinformation.
The game helps you to understand Cranky Uncles by becoming a Cranky Uncle yourself.
And you learn the techniques of science denial which are: fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking and conspiracy theories.
All easily memorable via the abbreviation FLICC.
Cranky Uncle mentors you on how to deny science by using these FLICC techniques.
You then practice spotting these techniques with the help of cartoon quizzes and other forms of quiz questions.
As you move along you build up Cranky points.
And the more cranky points you get, the more you are able to level up and see your mood get ever crankier.
To wrap up the day I joined Great Debate GDB3 - Geoengineering - Overarching Great Debate convened by Marie G. P. Cavitte, Zsanett Greta Papp, Noel Baker and Erika von Schneidemesser:
As our world approaches 1.5°C of global warming, as worldwide emissions continue to grow, and the impacts of climate change escalate, there is a general sentiment that we are running out of time. Increasingly, geoengineering concepts are being pushed into the media and policy spheres, using this sentiment of urgency to frame these concepts as “buying us time” for mitigation. There are many concepts, with the most advanced concepts including solar radiation management (marine cloud brightening, stratospheric aerosol injection mostly), sea ice thickening/brightening, sea curtains, tarping mountain glaciers, ocean fertilisation or alkalinity enhancement, as well as ocean biomass dumping, and many more. Some might target the root cause of our rising temperatures by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but with detrimental effects on the ecosystems impacted. Other concepts would just attenuate the symptoms of our planet, the rising global temperature.
Are geoengineering concepts a distraction from our urgent need for adaptation and mitigation? In a world where research funding, political focus on the green transition, and geopolitical order are dwindling, are we reducing our chances of reaching the highest possible mitigation ambition to stay well below 2°C and pursue efforts to stay below 1.5°C by even discussing these options? Several of the targeted ecosystems (e.g. our deep ocean, cloud-aerosol interactions, etc.) are not yet well understood at a fundamental level. Is it appropriate to advocate for their manipulation without first conducting adequate fundamental research?
Not too surprisingly given the topic, this turned out to be a very interesting and timely session, for which the focus had been restricted to two kinds of geo-engineering: solar radiation management (SRM) and Marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). The debate started with 10 minute keynotes from the panelists. The information provided below is based on my notes and the slides presented:
Carl Friedrich Schleussner leads the Integrated Climate Impacts Research Group at IIASA, and is also an Honorary Professor at Humboldt University Berlin. His research spans extreme climate events, climate impact projection, tipping elements and the societal implications of climate change, with a special focus on international climate negotiations and climate overshoot.
Carl Schleussner expects that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will become necessary in one form or the other to compensate for the very likely overshoot our continuing emissions are causing. He noted that there'll be side effects and unitended consequences and that SRM obviously doesn't fix the root cause of the problem. He also mentioned that there is no defined governance at the moment and that it could be used for geopolitical leverage and cause conflicts.
Yolanda López-Maldonado is a Maya Indigenous Earth systems scientist advancing Indigenous science in global environmental governance. Lead author of the upcoming UNEP Global Environment Outlook Report, a Review Editor for the 2nd IPBEST Global Assessment, and the founder of Indigenous Science, an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to integrating Indigenous knowledge into global scientific and diplomatic frameworks. Yolanda bridges Indigenous knowledge and global policy at the highest levels.
Yolanda López described SRM as a hypothesis about climate interventation but not a proven solution. Indigenous people nned to be involved and heard as right-holders instead of just stake-holders (if even that). Any intervention that alters the Earth system should be evaluated with a multidecadal perspective that Indigenous knowledge often provides. A globally inclusive, transparent and equitable scientific assessment process for SRM is required (UNEP 2023). Ethically, Indigenous peoples must be involved because they have a legitimate right to participate in decisions that may affect their territories and futures. If SRM is ever considered seriously, it must be governed as a planetary issue, not a technocratic fix: scientifically uncertain, ethically consequential, and inseparable from justice, Indigenous rights, and long-term observation.
Philippe Tulkens is head of the unit “Climate and Planetary Boundaries” in the Healthy Planet Directorate in DG Research and Innovation at the European Commission. His unit co-programs EU R&I activities in the areas of climate change, biodiversity, nature-based solutions and environmental observation. His unit is the EU focal point to the IPCC and EU co-focal point to the IPBES. Philippe is also the Deputy Mission Manager for the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change.
Philippe Turkens stated that from an EU perspective SRM is seen as a risk and is poorly understood. A commitment to assess the risks and uncertainties, to promote international discussions which are guided by the precautionary principle is needed and a moratorium on deployment is called for.
Sian Henley is a Reader in Marine Science and Deputy Head of the Global Change Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh. Her research spans climate and environmental change in the polar oceans, both the Arctic and Antarctic, to climate change impacts on children worldwide. Sian is active at the science-policy interface with a focus on Earth’s polar regions, such as at the COPs and the UN Ocean Conferences.
Sian Henley focused on the mCDR options and none of the proposed ideas really passes scrutiny. Even if they are tried, they will most likely not have much of an impact and these thought experiments should not distract from the urgen task to decrease emissions as quickly as possible. Of the proposed options, only iron fertilization has been tried experimentally but the results were not conclusive. There is however a risk that ocean chemistry would be changed with the nature of these changes being unknown. Impacts on fisheries and therefore people in the global south could be high, so they would be the ones most affected by decisions made in the global north - possibly even without their involvement.
Wil Burns serves as the Founding Co-Director of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal, a research center at American University in Washington DC, and is a Professor in the School of International Service. His research focuses on the law and governance of carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation modification approaches.
Wil Burns touched on some of the same issues Sian Henley mentioned and also pointed out that decarbonization of industry has to be tackled aggressively. He still fears that some carbon removal will be needed, something the IPCC expects as well.
A lot more points were raised in the subsequent panel discussion and during the Q&A part, here are some of them:
- no governance framework exists for CDR and it doesn't fit into any of the existing climate-related frameworks
- 77 countries include CDR in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) without giving any details
- geo-engineering is complex and therefore hard to explain to policy makers
- community led and nature based solutions may be better options
- topic is sensitive
- there's no transparency of who and why is currently pushing for geo-engineering
- how to avoid falling into the trap of "technical fixes"?
- some want to deploy e.g. SRM quickly because the situation is so dire
- some say that mitigation and adaptation needs to speed up first
- CDR could be abused for coercion
- we could be opening a Pandora's box
- large-scale testing will most likely happen - w/o asking - on indigenous land or near disenfranchised communities
- how big is the risk of somebody going roque and "simply" start something? Would we even be able to detect it?
So, at the end of the debate there were perhaps more open than closed questions but it definitely was thought-provoking!
Friday, May 8I started the last day of virtual EGU with another PICO-session: NH9.13 - Innovative Approaches to Hazards, Risk and Disaster Education and Communication convened by Bruce D. Malamud, Thomas Glade, Annika Fröwis, Faith Taylor, Caroline Michellier and Solmaz Mohadjer:
Resilience building requires effective communication, teaching and understanding of hazard and risk. Traditional outreach methods often struggle to engage diverse audiences; connect science and practice; or influence policy. Innovative approaches can address some of these challenges. For example, digital tools such as serious games, (massive) open online courses (MOOCs), simulations and immersive virtual/augmented reality can bring hazard scenarios to life. Equally, non-digital methods such as role-play, participatory mapping, classroom activities and tabletop demonstrations can foster engagement and deeper understanding of risk. This session welcomes abstracts that explore the development, application and evaluation of education and communication innovations across a spectrum: from primary through the postgraduate learning, and from public to expert engagement. We particularly welcome contributions of serious games, VR/AR simulations and digital platforms in addition to non-digital methods such as classroom demonstrations and participatory activities. Presentations that reflect on co-production with stakeholders, inclusivity and approaches for evaluating outcomes are strongly encouraged. In this session, we hope to bring together researchers, educators and practitioners to share best practice, showcase cutting-edge tools and teaching methods, and critically reflect on the role of innovation in hazard and risk education and communication. We plan on having a PICO session to ensure a lively combination of discussion and poster presentation.
The conveners had divided this 2-part PICO-session thematically. Before the morning coffee-break we heard about serious games & simulations and academic & professional eduction projects. Afterwards the themes changed to child & youth eduction, public engagement and media. Unfortunately, some of the speakers didn't make it in time to the session because there were issues with public transport in Vienna.
Initially, I wasn't quite sure if a session from the Natural Hazards (NH) science section of EGU would make much sense for me to join as I usually gravitate towards the education, outreach and policy sessions offered at the conference. However - and after taking a closer look at the submitted abstracts - this could just as well have been an EOS-session given that the talks were in fact about different education and outreach strategies in the realm of natural hazards.
As this was a PICO-session, short 2-minute pitches followed in rapid succession during the first part of each timeblock. We heard about an online simulation game where players have to evacuate people after an earthquake without getting into landslides while doing so, about gamified flood resilience simulation and effective risk communication, about underappreciated hazards of burning lowlands, about disaster risk reduction in case of floods and wildfires, about necessary civic engangement when it comes to natural hazards, about climate-driven geohazard mitigation, about enhancing risk management through education, research and innovation, about webplatforms collecting natural hazards, about storytelling and podcasts to get the word out.
In addition to the many different topics touched upon, where these projects are done is just as varied: they could be very local (Tübingen in Germany), regional (lowlands in The Netherlands), moutaineous areas in Nepal, Pakistan, Austria, South Korea, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Italy, volcanic regions in The Democratic Republic of Congo, on the Canary Islands or the Philippines. Or they could be in virtual and synthetic worlds simulating various places.
List of presentations:
- Martin Mergili - Geogames and geohazards
- Binod Prasad Parajuli - Immersive Flood Education for Effective Risk Communication: Field-Based Testing of Virtual Reality and Gamified Simulations for Flood Preparedness in Terai region of Nepal
- Milica Mijailovi? - Burning Lowlands: A Serious Game to Evaluate Citizen Learning, Communication, and Decision-Making in Climate Adaptation
- Innocent Bahati Mutazihara - Using serious games to communicate disaster risk: Insights from interrupted implementation in Eastern DR Congo
- Jakob F. Steiner - Asking those who feel it - indigenous knowledge on climate risks in mountains: Transdisciplinary teaching to enhance student engagement
- Sophia Sternath - EUMAplus: Digitalization of educational materials for Disaster Management and Civil Protection experts and professionals
- Monica May L Mendoza - Advancing Disaster Education and Risk Communication through the Fundamentals of Resilience MOOCs in the Philippines
- Solmaz Mohadjer - Fostering Civic Engagement on Natural Hazard Uncertainty: A Service-Learning course to create an active dialogue between science and society
- Graham Lewis Gilbert - Educating for Climate-Driven Geohazard Mitigation and Management – Experience from the GEOMME International Partnership in Norway, South Korea, and Japan
- Lisa Van Well - Communicating Cascading Natural Hazards through Co-Created Visualization with Youth
- Bruce D Malamud - Low-Cost and Accessible Approaches to Natural Hazard Education in Secondary Schools
- Luca Piciullo - Halfway through the NATRISK project: Enhancing risk management and resilience to natural hazards in India, Brazil and Norway through collaborative education, research and innovation
- Carla Iadanza - The IdroGEO web platform: an innovative tool for landslide hazard and risk communication in Italy
- Alfonso Senatore - PAER: A new web platform for acquisition, storage, processing, and visualization of natural risks
- Saverio Romeo - Innovative Tools for Disaster Risk Education: Twenty Years of LARES Initiatives in Italy
- Paul Caesar Flores - From Data to Stories: Human-Centered Podcasting for Hazard and Risk Communication
- Nemesio M. Pérez - The role of media and journalism in volcanic risk reduction: insights from the Canary Island
This turned out to be the last session I documented during the week. The virtual poster session I had on my list for the afternoon turned out to contain only a few presentations from a cross-section of what had already been covered in oral sessions during the week and lasted for only 30 minutes. Some of the posters were flagged as "no pictures allowed" and some were in a format not really suitable to grab screenshots of.
Over the final lunch break of EGU26 I headed back up to the rooftop in Gather on the off-chance that somebody might come there for the last networking session I had offered to chat about Skeptical Science. While nobody came for the session itself I had a nice - if short - chat with another participant who joined EGU virtually from Australia.
SummaryAs you can tell by the length of this blog post (sorry about that!), EGU kept me pretty occupied during the week. All told, I gave 2 oral presentations, joined 14 timeslots covering 4 Education and Outreach sessions (EOS) two of which were done as oral sessions and two as PICOs, 1 Natural Hazards PICO session (NH), 1 Inter- and Transdisciplinary Studies session (ITS), 4 short courses (SC), 1 Union Symposium (US) and 1 Great Debate (GDB). Joining the sessions virtually worked pretty well and only one of the PICO-sessions did have some technical issues with the Zoom-Meeting.
During the sessions I grabbed about 500 screenshots of which 162 made it into my visual session summaries and from there into the daily compilations. I took a lot of notes on my iPad during the sessions but fear, that I won't really be able to read my own scribbles when I look at them again in a short little while. But they did help with writing my diary, so served their main purpose quite well.
Final update from the EGU-website: "The EGU General Assembly 2026 welcomed 22,497 registered attendees, of which 20,027 made their way to Vienna from 125 countries and 2,470 joined online from 107 countries. It was a great success with 20,173 presentations given in 1,014 sessions. [...]"
To paraphrase a saying: "After a General Assembly of the European Geoscience Union is before the next one"! I plan to join EGU27 onsite in Vienna next year when the conference will happen a month earlier than this year from April 4 to 9. I'm already looking forward to the trip!
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