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Mapping Europe’s rooftop photovoltaic potential with a building-level database, Kakoulaki et al., Nature Energy

Individual building-level approaches are needed to understand the full potential of rooftop photovoltaics (PV) at national and regional scale. Here we use the European Digital Building Stock Model R2025, an open-access building-level database, to assess rooftop solar potential for each of the 271 million buildings in the European Union. The results show that potential capacity could reach 2.3 TWp (1,822 GWp residential, 519 GWp non-residential), with an annual output of 2,750 TWh based on current PV technology. This corresponds to approximately 40% of electricity demand in a 100% renewable scenario for 2050. Already by 2030, over a half of buildings with floor area larger than 2,000 m2 could generate most of remaining capacity for the 2030 target with 355 GWp. Across member states, non-residential rooftops could cover 50% or more of their PV targets, with several exceeding 95%. The open-access building-level database offers practical tools to support better decisions, accelerate renewable energy adoption and promote a more decentralized energy system. It is also an enabler for planners and researchers to further explore energy scenarios with high renewable shares.

A new class of climate hazard metrics and its demonstration: revealing a ten-fold increase of extreme heat over Europe, Kirchengast et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Here we introduce a new class of threshold-exceedance-amount metrics that consistently track changes in event frequency, duration, magnitude, area, and timing aspects like daily exposure and seasonal shift—as separate metrics, partially compound (e.g., average event severity), and as compound total events extremity (TEX). Building on daily temperature datasets over 1961 to 2024, we applied the new metrics to extreme heat events at local- to country-scale (example Austria) and across Europe, demonstrating their utility through this use. Comparing the recent period 2010-2024 to the reference period 1961-1990, we reveal amplification factors of around 10 [5 to 25] in the TEX of extreme heat over Austrian and most central and southern European regions. This degree of amplification is found to strongly exceed the natural variability, providing unequivocal evidence of anthropogenic climate change. Given their fundamental capacity to reliably track any threshold-defined hazard at any location, the new metrics can support a myriad of uses beyond this example application. These range from climate impact analyses for extremes such as heatwaves, floods and droughts to extreme events attribution, quantifying the anthropogenic share of a hazard extremity and of its damage to properties and harm to people. Learning the hard way: Applying a climate literacy approach to extreme weather experience — Evidence from Poland, Kurowski & Wites, Weather and Climate Extremes Climate literacy is essential for empowering societies to respond effectively to the challenges of climate change. However, individuals often struggle to address climate issues because of their abstract nature and perceived psychological distance. This study investigates whether direct personal experiences of extreme weather events are associated with higher scores on the climate literacy measures among Polish citizens. We developed and validated, through an expert-based process, the “Big Three Climate Literacy Questions” - a concise instrument designed to capture key components of climate literacy across knowledge, skills and attitudes - and administered them in a survey of 1001 residents from regions in Poland historically affected by floods and storms. Regression analyses reveal that the mere occurrence of an extreme weather event does not significantly influence scores on the climate literacy measures. However, when such events result in severe financial or psychological consequences, they are associated with higher literacy scores (for all three dimensions of climate literacy), suggesting that the intensity of the experience can act as a catalyst for deeper cognitive and emotional engagement. We also find that individuals employed in high-emission sectors tend to overestimate their climate knowledge; nonetheless, their personal experiences with extreme weather events are still associated with higher scores on the climate literacy measures. These findings support the hypothesis that intense climate-related experiences can serve as “teachable moments", enhancing receptiveness to climate information and fostering the development of more accurate and informed climate-related beliefs—even among groups that might otherwise exhibit resistance to such messages. From this week's government/NGO section:

WMO confirms 2025 was one of warmest years on record, World Meteorological Organization

The global average surface temperature was 1.44 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the 1850-1900 average, according to WMO’s consolidated analysis of eight datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past 11 years have been 11 warmest on record. Temporary cooling by La Niña does not reverse the monotonic trend. International data exchange underpins climate monitoring datasets for a single authoritative source of information.

Global Temperature Report for 2025, Berkeley Earth

2025 was the third warmest year on Earth since 1850. It is exceeded only by 2024 and 2023. This period, since 1850, is the time when sufficient direct measurements from thermometers exist to create a purely instrumental estimate of changes in global mean temperature. The analysis combines 23 million monthly-average thermometer measurements from 57,685 weather stations with ~500 million instantaneous ocean temperature observations collected by ships and buoys. The last 11 years have included all 11 of the warmest years observed in the instrumental record, with the last 3 years including all of the top 3 warmest.

Assessing the Global Temperature and Precipitation Analysis in 2025, National Centers for Environmental Information, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

2025 ranks as the third-warmest yea Upper ocean heat content was record high in 2025. Annual sea ice extent for both the Arctic and Antarctic regions ranked among the three lowest years on record. The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent was the third lowest on record. There were 101 named tropical storms across the globe in 2025, which was above average. 201 articles in 60 journals by 1151 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Antarctic warming affects northern Equatorial Indian Ocean SST via oceanic tunnels, Sherin et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105321

Climate and Anthropogenic Perturbations Impact Stream Geochemistry, Warix et al., Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025ef006512

Considerable yet contrasting regional imprint of circulation change on summer temperature trends across the Northern hemisphere mid-latitudes, Pfleiderer et al., Weather and Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.5194/wcd-7-89-2026

Dynamics of Heat Wave Intensification over the Indian Region, Lekshmi et al., Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 10.1175/jas-d-24-0093.1

Exploring the Influence of Sea Surface Temperature Extremes on Precipitation Extremes Across India's Climate Zones: A Complex Network Approach, Reddy et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70172

Increased deciduous tree dominance reduces wildfire carbon losses in boreal forests, Black et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02539-z

Irreversibility of extreme precipitation intensity in global monsoon areas under multiple carbon neutrality scenarios, Miah et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2025.100843

North Atlantic ventilation change over the past three decades is potentially driven by climate change, Guo et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-025-67923-x

The observed September 2023 temperature jump was nearly impossible under standard anthropogenic forcing, Seeber et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03178-8

Upper Circumpolar Deep Water Properties: Means and Trends From 2005 Through 2024, Johnson, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025jc023154

Weak self-induced cooling of tropical cyclones amid fast sea surface warming, Guan et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-025-01879-x

Observations of climate change, effects

A new class of climate hazard metrics and its demonstration: revealing a ten-fold increase of extreme heat over Europe, Kirchengast et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100855

An Assessment of Extreme Precipitation Trends in the Missouri River Basin: Insights From Three Gridded Precipitation Data Sets and Climate Indices, Gupta et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.70163

Climate change shifts the North Pacific storm track polewards, Chemke & Yuval, Nature 10.1038/s41586-025-09895-y

Creeping snow drought threatens Canada’s water supply, Sarpong et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-025-03162-8

Long-Term Trends in Global Natural Vegetation Greenness Rate and Its Climatic Drivers in a Warming World, An et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2025jg009089

Mapping Diurnal Heat Stress in Nigeria: Spatial and Temporal Changes Over Seven Decades, Nasara et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70262

Persistent river heatwaves are emerging worldwide under climate change, Chen et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-025-66868-5

Reduced spatial heterogeneity of day-night temperature variability difference under global changes, Liu et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105311

Spatio-Temporal Change of Climate Regions in Türkiye, Pekta? & Aksu, International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70166

The observed evolution of Arctic amplification over the past 45 years, Serreze et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-411-2026

Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

A new class of climate hazard metrics and its demonstration: revealing a ten-fold increase of extreme heat over Europe, Kirchengast et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100855

Diatom lipids open window to past ocean temperatures in the polar regions, Belt et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03177-1

Energy-conservation datasets of global land surface radiation and heat fluxes from 2000–2020 generated by CoSEB, Wang et al., Open Access 10.5194/essd-2025-456

Tracking surface ozone responses to clean air actions under a warming climate in China using machine learning, Fang et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-851-2026

Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

Anthropogenic warming projected to drive a decline in global tropical cyclone frequency in CMIP6 simulations, Zhao et al., npj Climate and Atmospheric Science Open Access 10.1038/s41612-026-01330-x

Coupled climate–land-use interactions modulate projected heatwave intensification across Africa, Adeyeri et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03110-6

New insights from the bias-corrected simulations of CMIP6 in Northern Hemisphere’s snow drought, Hu et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03187-7

Observed and CMIP6 projected rainfall variability and change in drylands of southern Ethiopia, Chinasho et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000800

Projected Future Changes in the Withdrawal of Summer Monsoon over the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea, Cheng & Wang, Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0357.1

Simulated Impact of Vegetation Greening on Summer Arctic Cyclone Intensity in the Northern Eurasia Margin in WRFs, Yang et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.70175

Storylines of extreme summer temperatures in southern South America, Suli et al., Open Access 10.5194/egusphere-2025-3357

Summer Precipitation Long-Term Changes at Different Intensities in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region From 1961 to 2014 and Simulation Performance Evaluation of CMIP6 Models, Gao et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70222

Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Bias Adjustment and the Question of Usable Climate Information: Methodological Assumptions and Value Judgments, Spuler et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access 10.1175/bams-d-25-0022.1

Complex Networks Reveal Climate Models' Capability in Simulating Global Synchronized Extreme Precipitation, Jiang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl118219

Comprehensive Evaluation of Precipitation Reanalysis Products and CMIP6 Models Using Statistical and Machine Learning Techniques With Nature-Inspired Optimization, Choudhary et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70159

Evaluation of atmospheric sulfur dioxide simulated with the EMAC (version 2.55) Chemistry–Climate Model using satellite and ground-based observations, Makroum et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-447-2026

Improved European heat event simulation in eddy-resolving climate models, Krüger et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03145-9

Mobile sensing discovery of when where and why vulnerable road users break traffic rules, Li et al., npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44333-025-00068-y

Overestimation of past and future increases in global river flow by Earth system models, Zhang et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-025-01897-9

Cryosphere & climate change

A new era of bioclimatic extremes in the terrestrial Arctic, Aalto et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adw5698

African contributions are missing from cryosphere research in Africa and worldwide, Asante et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2025.1691950

Bias-adjusted projections of snow cover over eastern Canada using an ensemble of regional climate models, Bresson et al., Open Access pdf 10.5194/egusphere-2025-3979

Creeping snow drought threatens Canada’s water supply, Sarpong et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-025-03162-8

Positive feedbacks drive the Greenland ice sheet evolution in millennial-length MAR–GISM simulations under a high-end warming scenario, Paice et al., Open Access 10.5194/egusphere-2025-2465

Post-2000 faster ENSO phase transitions amplify autumn sea ice loss in the Laptev–East Siberian Sea, Wang et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aea3753

Prevailing thermal models underestimate permafrost thermal state in the Tibetan Plateau: Implications for cryosphere adaptation, Zhao et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2025.12.009

Seasonal timing and preceding moisture regime mediate impacts of heavy rainfall events on High Arctic plant growth, Magnússon et al., Journal of Ecology 10.1111/1365-2745.70237

State dependent ice-sheet resonance under Cenozoic and future climates, Golledge et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03135-x

Sea level & climate change

Abrupt trend change in global mean sea level and its components in the early 2010s, Leclercq et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03149-5

Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

Contrasting evolution of the Arabian Sea and Pacific Ocean oxygen minimum zones during the Miocene, Hess et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03112-4

Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

21st-Century Mangrove Expansion Along the Southeastern United States, Enes Gramoso et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70676

Accelerated Flowering and Differential Florigen Gene Expression of Seagrass Zostera marina Under Experimental Warming, Nolan et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.72942

Acute Heat Priming Dampens Gene Expression Response to Thermal Stress in a Widespread Acropora Coral, Stick et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.72938

Aligning climate-smart marine spatial planning and ecoscape restoration for global biodiversity recovery, Wedding et al., Nature Reviews Biodiversity 10.1038/s44358-025-00116-y

Assessing Habitat Suitability and Range Dynamics of Syzygium alternifolium (Wight) Walp Under Future Climatic Scenarios, PP et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72861

Climate change impacts on Arctic ecosystems and associated feedbacks, Fauchald et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1747632

Commercial fishing amplifies impacts of increasing temperature on predator-prey interactions in marine ecosystems, Shurety et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-025-67362-8

Compounded effects of long-term warming and the exceptional 2023 marine heatwave on North Atlantic coccolithophore bloom dynamics, Guinaldo & Neukermans, Ocean Science Open Access pdf 10.5194/os-22-145-2026

Compounded effects of long-term warming and the exceptional 2023 marine heatwave on North Atlantic coccolithophore bloom dynamics, Guinaldo & Neukermans, Ocean Science Open Access pdf 10.5194/os-22-145-2026

Conservation Challenges and Opportunities for Fokienia hodginsii in the Wuyi Mountains Under Climate Change and Human Influence, Luo et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72887

Editorial: Polluted ecosystems: how global climate change drives pollutant dynamics in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, Ulus et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1772617

Exacerbated Impacts of Compound Dry-Hot Events on Vegetation: Critical Thresholds and Spatial Vulnerability Dynamics in Northwest China, Liu et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70266

Freshwater subarctic wetlands are vulnerable to future thermal stress from climate warming, Adey et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03080-9

Functional group and aridity regulate impacts of climate change on plant phenology: a meta-analysis, Sun et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-025-68242-x

Global Warming Drives Phenological Shifts and Hinders Reproductive Success in a Temperate Octocoral, Viladrich et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70660

Heat but Not Cold Tolerance Is Phylogenetically Constrained in Greenlandic Terrestrial Arthropods Under Future Global Warming, Wesseltoft et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.70687

Hidden Vulnerability: Extreme Drought Threatens Dryland Plant Communities Under Climate Change, Wilson et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70703

Impact of Climate Change and Human Activities on Suitable Distribution of Rhodiola Species in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau: Modeling Insights for Conservation Prioritization, Li et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.72896

Intraspecific Niche Evolution in a Drought Deciduous Shrub With Implications for Climate Resiliency, Pennartz et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72816

Karyotyping and Distribution Patterns of Endemic Chinese Lilies: Insights Into Their Conservation Under Climate Change, Gui et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72824

Local Adaptation in Climate Tolerance at a Small Geographic Scale Contrasts With Broad Latitudinal Patterns, Walter et al., Open Access pdf 10.1101/2025.05.27.655235

Long-Term Records Reveal Temperature-Driven Nutrient Limitation and Predict Intensified Algal Blooms in Global Lakes, Zhou et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70719

Long-Term Trends in Global Natural Vegetation Greenness Rate and Its Climatic Drivers in a Warming World, An et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2025jg009089

Millennial-scale fire and climate dynamics in the world's largest tropical wetland show emerging fire threat to flooded ecosystems, Whitney et al., Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5281340

Paleodistribution of Cercidiphyllaceae and Future Habitat Prediction for Cercidiphyllum japonicum Under Climate Change, Mao et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.72940

Physiological Traits for Climate-Ready Restoration, Barton et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72939

Predicting the fate of tropical forests under intensifying heat, Anderson-Teixeira & Anujan, Nature 10.1038/d41586-025-04093-2

Projecting Climate-Driven Habitat Loss in Highly Trafficked Lizards: The Role of Dispersal Limitations and Protected Areas, Valbuena?Fernandez et al., Diversity and Distributions Open Access pdf 10.1111/ddi.70140

Regional NDVI reconstruction over the last 600 years in Northwestern Patagonia reveals a rapid decline, Gallardo et al., Dendrochronologia 10.1016/j.dendro.2026.126475

Reimagining coral reef futures, Gianelli et al., npj Ocean Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44183-025-00179-6

Significant northwest shift in suitable climate expected for North American bison by the year 2100, Shupinski et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.3389/fevo.2025.1695457

Soil Protist Diversity and Biotic Interactions Shape Ecosystem Functions Under Climate Change, Liu et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70692

Spring phenology of the Arctic Ocean shelf production system, Huserbråten & Vikebø, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03192-w

Tree bark microbes for climate management, Gauci, Science 10.1126/science.aec9651

Tropical Montane Cloud Forests Have High Resilience to Five Years of Severe Soil Drought, Bartholomew et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.70670

Tropicalization and biodiversity restructuring of calcifying plankton in a rapidly warming Mediterranean Sea, Lucas et al., Global and Planetary Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105314

Warming drives non-stationary climate-growth relationships and differential drought sensitivity in Mediterranean pines, Campôa et al., Dendrochronologia Open Access 10.1016/j.dendro.2026.126469

Warming-induced changes in leaf phenology could amplify the effects of spring drought on tree seedlings, Muñoz-Mazón & Seidl, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111022

Was black spruce a good host of the spruce budworm in warmer periods of the Holocene? a long-term reconstruction, Terreaux de Félice et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.3389/fevo.2025.1682907

Widespread Phenological Shifts With Temperature in Alaska's Marine Fishes, Rogers et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70708

GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

Bark microbiota modulate climate-active gas fluxes in Australian forests, Leung et al., Science 10.1126/science.adu2182

Congo Basin Carbon Cycle Responses to Global Change, , Open Access 10.48577/jpl.llsnq0

Dynamic impacts of urbanization development on carbon storage and NPP: spatiotemporal responses in the Wanjiang urban belt (2000–2020), Fang et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1747268

Editorial: Impact of climate change on carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems, He et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1778816

Frequent Droughts Reduce Carbon Stabilisation in Organo-Mineral Soils, Albanito et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70657

Long-term impacts of mixotrophy on ocean carbon storage: insights from a 10 000 year global model simulation, Puglia et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-463-2026

Mapping pan-Arctic riverine particulate organic carbon from space (1985 to 2022), Sun et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.ady6314

Multiple Global Change Stressors Boost Soil Greenhouse Gas Emissions Worldwide, Chen et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70633

Optimal daily time windows for measuring fluxes of soil methane and nitrous oxide in subalpine forests are elusive - unlike for carbon dioxide, Peng et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111026

Productivity-driven decoupling of microbial carbon use efficiency and respiration across global soils, Cui et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adz5319

Reduced precipitation and increased temperature alter soil greenhouse gas fluxes in a Mediterranean forest, Villa-Sanabria et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.110994

Remapping carbon storage change in retired farmlands on the Loess Plateau in China from 2000–2021 in high spatiotemporal resolution, Guo et al., Earth System Science Data Open Access pdf 10.5194/essd-18-429-2026

Spatiotemporal variability and environmental controls on aquatic methane emissions in an Arctic permafrost catchment, Thayne et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-23-477-2026

CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

Enhancing carbon sinks in China using a spatially-optimized forestation strategy, Dong et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-68288-5

Fossil-fuel phase out is not enough: countries must remove atmospheric carbon, Clarke & Maslin, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-00211-w

Seaweed farms enhance alkalinity production and carbon capture, Fakhraee & Planavsky, Communications Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44458-025-00004-8

Sonic velocity discontinuity for CO2 brine mixtures in the context of carbon storage in aquifers, Norouzi et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2025.1758092

The carbon dioxide removal potential of cement and lime kiln dust via ocean alkalinity enhancement, Flipkens et al., Open Access pdf 10.5194/egusphere-2025-4887

Decarbonization

A critical meta-survey of the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of hydrogen energy systems, Sovacool et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104461

Mapping Europe’s rooftop photovoltaic potential with a building-level database, Kakoulaki et al., Nature Energy Open Access 10.1038/s41560-025-01947-x

Role of avoided emissions scheme and estimation of contributions of electric vehicles and heat pumps to reduction in global emissions, Akimoto et al., Carbon Management Open Access 10.1080/17583004.2026.2614424

Satisficing devices: Co-benefits in practice to decarbonize New York City's residential buildings, Bhardwaj et al., Energy Research & Social Science 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104512

Uncovering the potential of coal-to-nuclear in the energy low-carbon transition, ZHOU et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.01.001

Geoengineering climate

Influence of Surface Aerosol Injection on Stratocumulus-to-Cumulus Transition: Cloud-Surface Coupling and Background Aerosol Concentrations, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd044444

Ocean alkalinity enhancement in an estuary, Ho et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1665329

 Climate change communications & cognition

Dissent and obstruction: A systematic literature review of the climate countermovement, Eskridge-Aldama et al., Energy Research & Social Science 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104529

Greater perceived fossil fuel reliance predicts lower support for systemic climate policies, Klebl et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102898

Learning the hard way: Applying a climate literacy approach to extreme weather experience — Evidence from Poland, Kurowski & Wites, Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100851

Selective intersectionality: far-right populist Re-casting of social discontent in Europe’s green transition, Yazar et al., Environmental Politics Open Access 10.1080/09644016.2026.2612815

The role of climate and migration concerns in shaping personal economic insecurity in european societies, Liashenko et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104533

“Why didn’t the sirens wail on the roofs?”: political framing competition in the German parliament following the 2021 floods, Wyss & Chiru, Environmental Politics Open Access 10.1080/09644016.2025.2609431

Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

A scoping review of literature on adoption and impact of climate smart agricultural technologies by smallholder farmers in Africa, Rurii & Nzengya Daniel, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1692929

Associating climate change mitigation with protein security: The case of Ireland, Merlo et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104311

Bamboo for climate resilience: green gold of ecosystems in the UN SDG Framework, Mandaliya, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2025.1723994

Climate change has increased crop water consumption in Central Asia despite less water-intensive cropping, Peña-Guerrero et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-025-03142-y

Climate Change Risks and Climate Adaptation in Agro-Processing Enterprises, Mazenda et al., Climate Resilience and Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1002/cli2.70030

Climate-resilient agri-food systems: analyzing yield trends and overcoming adoption barriers, Durgude et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-025-07186-0

Commercial fishing amplifies impacts of increasing temperature on predator-prey interactions in marine ecosystems, Shurety et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-025-67362-8

Compound Drought and Temperature Events Intensify Wheat Yield Loss in Australia, Li et al., Earth's Future Open Access 10.1029/2023ef004124

Grazing influences salt marsh greenhouse gas balance mediated by plant-specific methane emissions, Yang et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.111001

Modeling Climate Change Impacts on a Socioeconomically Vital Plant: The Case of Comanthera elegans (Goldenfoot Flower), de Azevedo et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72031

Natural grasslands used for grazing livestock can mitigate climate change, Pillar & Winck, Science 10.1126/science.aea8344

Projected shifts in climate and spring barley yields under future (CMIP6) scenarios across eight environmental zones in Europe, Köster et al., Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5380175

Seaweed farms enhance alkalinity production and carbon capture, Fakhraee & Planavsky, Communications Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44458-025-00004-8

Strong mismatch in climate change adaptation between intentions of private forest owners in Canada and institutional support, Fouqueray et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-02942-6

Sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) and global climate change: a new perspective for sustainable forestry, Vacek et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2025.1731092

Tailoring Australian carbon farming can realise greater co-benefits, Bhattarai et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-68628-5

Unpacking the growth of global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, Ortiz-Bobea & Pieralli, Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeb8653

Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

An Assessment of Extreme Precipitation Trends in the Missouri River Basin: Insights From Three Gridded Precipitation Data Sets and Climate Indices, Gupta et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.70163

Climatological Analysis of the 2022–2023 Unprecedented Dry Period in Southwestern Uruguay, Deagosto & Barreiro, International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70260

Creeping snow drought threatens Canada’s water supply, Sarpong et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-025-03162-8

Evaluation of Present and Future Relationships Between Daily Precipitation and Temperature in Eastern China, Wu et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.70168

Global monsoon variability in a 1.5 °C warming climate: Observational changes and end-century projections, Kemarau et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.108765

High resolution simulation of urban compound flooding under climate impacts, Amini et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102771

Irreversibility of extreme precipitation intensity in global monsoon areas under multiple carbon neutrality scenarios, Miah et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2025.100843

Projected Future Changes in the Withdrawal of Summer Monsoon over the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea, Cheng & Wang, Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0357.1

Trends and Circulation Conditions of Precipitation Over the Sudeten Mountains (Central Europe) in the Years 1961–2020, Ojrzy?ska et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.70256

Climate change economics

Accounting for ocean impacts nearly doubles the social cost of carbon, Bastien-Olvera et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02533-5

Climate change mitigation public policy research

A coalition on compliance carbon markets to make climate clubs politically feasible, Koppenborg, Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02541-5

A Note on Effects of Fossil Fuel Reduction Policies on Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Buildup and Global Warming, Alagoz et al., Journal of Atmospheric and Solar 10.1016/j.jastp.2026.106724

Aligning EU energy security and climate mitigation through targeted transition strategies, Lal et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-025-67595-7

Emission degrowth potential of Chinese city cluster toward carbon neutrality: The climate planetary boundaries perspective, Li et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102776

How does climate policy uncertainty influence energy consumption transition in China: evidence from 277 cities, Wei et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1744044

The role of carbon labels for consumer decisions: evidence from a class of Chinese students, Liu & Wang, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1708974

Understanding policymaker support of energy decarbonization policies for buildings, Dorsey-Palmateer et al., Energy Research & Social Science 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104536

When a forest is masked by trees: How French subsurface industries involved in decarbonisation and transition policies are instrumentalising poor social acceptance, Arnauld de Sartre & Chailleux, Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104517

Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

A habitability lens to boost effective local climate adaptation, Magnan et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104323

Assessing climate change impacts on military academies: a comparative analysis of the United States Military Academy and the South African Military Academy, Read et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2025.100784

Co-designing soft climate adaptation: citizen centred solutions across four European pilots, Jost et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1738479

Coastal flood risk to European surface transport infrastructure at different global warming levels, Nawarat et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access 10.1038/s41558-025-02510-y

Determinants of Household Adaptation to Climate Vulnerability in Wetland Areas of Bangladesh: An Empirical Estimation, Bithi et al., Climate Resilience and Sustainability Open Access 10.1002/cli2.70028

Exploring nature-based solutions’ effectiveness indicators for climate change adaptation: a systematic review, Horneman et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1603919

Forging Common Paths: A Systematic Review of Co-Creation and Collaborative Learning in Adaptation Pathways, Sommerauer et al., WIREs Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1002/wcc.70038

Impacts of global warming on coastal flood risk to European surface transport infrastructure, , Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02518-4

Moving on the edge: climate change-induced hazards and the politics of (im)mobility in Rohingya refugee camps, Rafa, Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2025.2609772

Strategies to strengthen institutional capacities for climate-resilient coastal socio-ecological systems in Bangladesh, Roy et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2026.2617374

Taking values seriously for transformational climate change adaptation, Calliari et al., Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5658900

The gap between attitudes and action within the US geoscience community's response to natural hazards, Gonzales et al., Geoscience Communication Open Access 10.5194/gc-9-35-2026

Urban climate resilience governance in the Yangtze River Economic Belt: A novel approach based on integrating RAVT framework with SDGs, Yang & Li, Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2025.102702

Urban Heat Island in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East: Multi-City Approach in Regional Climate Modelling, Constantinidou et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.70255

Climate change impacts on human health

Development and validation of the Global Urban Heat Vulnerability Index (GUHVI), Turner et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2025.102716

Emerging heat stress patterns across India under future climate scenarios, Molina et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-36299-3

Mapping Diurnal Heat Stress in Nigeria: Spatial and Temporal Changes Over Seven Decades, Nasara et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70262

The shift of heat-related respiratory mortality from 2005 to 2019 in China and its socioeconomic determinants, Ji et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100789

Climate change impacts on human culture

Climate change and ocean acidification pose a risk to underwater cultural heritage, Germinario et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03184-w

Other

Exploring water-energy-food nexus connections between climate action and regional development in the East African community, Wambua et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2025.100760

Large carbon dioxide emissions avoidance potential in improved commercial air transport efficiency, Gössling et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-025-03069-4

Millennial-scale fire and climate dynamics in the world's largest tropical wetland show emerging fire threat to flooded ecosystems, Whitney et al., Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5281340

Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

Defossilize our chemical world, , Nature Open Access pdf 10.1038/d41586-026-00005-0

Extreme weather event accountability, , Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-025-01904-z

The US is quitting 66 global agencies: what does it mean for science?, Castelvecchi & Masood, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-00102-0 

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Global Temperature Report for 2025, Berkeley Earth

2025 was the third warmest year on Earth since 1850. It is exceeded only by 2024 and 2023. This period, since 1850, is the time when sufficient direct measurements from thermometers exist to create a purely instrumental estimate of changes in global mean temperature. The analysis combines 23 million monthly-average thermometer measurements from 57,685 weather stations with ~500 million instantaneous ocean temperature observations collected by ships and buoys. The last 11 years have included all 11 of the warmest years observed in the instrumental record, with the last 3 years including all of the top 3 warmest.

Assessing the Global Temperature and Precipitation Analysis in 2025, National Centers for Environmental Information, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

2025 ranks as the third-warmest yea Upper ocean heat content was record high in 2025. Annual sea ice extent for both the Arctic and Antarctic regions ranked among the three lowest years on record. The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent was the third lowest on record. There were 101 named tropical storms across the globe in 2025, which was above average.

Higher Energy Bills, Lost Jobs, and Growing Uncertainty: How Trump’s War on Clean Energy is Hurting Massachusetts Families, Offices of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey

To understand how Massachusetts residents are impacted by the Trump Administration’s attacks on clean energy, our offices interviewed thirteen Mas communities in the Commonwealth. President Trump’s attacks on clean energy projects have meant that over $8.6 billion in investment has been lost or delayed in Massachusetts, costing over 16,750 jobs. More than 165,000 jobs have been lost or delayed in the U.S. clean energy sector. More than $53 billion in private investment has been lost or delayed 324 projects across the country have been delayed, been cancelled, or laid off staff.

Who’s Obstructing Climate Action in the Rhode Island Legislature?, Culhane et al., The Climate and Development Lab, Brown University

After stunning successes in 2021 and 2022, climate action has slowed in Rhode Island. Why have outcomes in the same state been so different? Why do so many climate and clean energy bills die in the legislature? What are the barriers to climate legislation in Rhode Island? Who is obstructing state climate legislation, and what strategies are they using? What approaches are being proposed in the 2025 Climate Action Strategy, and how have neighboring states moved forward on them? The authors seek to answer those questions in ways that provide actionable information to advocates and insights for political observers. For example, Rhode Island Energy, owned by Pennsylvania Power and Light (PPL), spent the most on lobbying (in the years it has been active) and was the most active opponent of environmental groups on climate and energy bills in our study period. Business coalitions and the RI Public Utilities Commission (PUC) are frequent opponents of climate policies. Rhode Island’s 2025 Climate Action Strategy proposes interventions that have been introduced in past legislative sessions--and faced resistance. Rhode Island has key state-level constraints that have posed barriers to climate action.

WMO confirms 2025 was one of warmest years on record, World Meteorological Organization

The global average surface temperature was 1.44 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the 1850-1900 average, according to WMO’s consolidated analysis of eight datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past 11 years have been 11 warmest on record. Temporary cooling by La Niña does not reverse the monotonic trend. International data exchange underpins climate monitoring datasets for a single authoritative source of information.

Climate change presses on: Devastating wildfires and intense thunderstorms exacerbate losses for insurers, Munich Re

Natural disaster figures for 2025: Costliest claims year to date regarding non-peak perils: Wildfires, flooding and severe thunderstorms account for almost all insured losses. Insured losses once again above the US$ 100bn mark; total global losses lower than the 10-year average. Hurricane Melissa devastates Jamaica; USA dodges direct hurricane hit for first time in ten years. Fatalities totaling 17,200 significantly higher than in 2024, but below long-term average. Climate change does not let up: 2025 one of the warmest years ever.

Global EV sales reach 20.7 million units in 2025, growing by 20%, Rho Motion

The authors report that 2.1 million electric vehicles were sold globally in December. 

Tracking the energy transition: Where are we now?, Barth etal., McKinsey and Company

Following our first stock take in 2024, the authors conducted a follow-up review of the energy transition in 2025 by evaluating the deployment of clean energy technologies in key regions against net-zero targets. The authors reexamine the question, “Is the world on track to reach its 2030 low-carbon technology build-out plan?” To answer it, they evaluate nine key decarbonization technologies across China, Europe, which in the analysis includes the European U are currently on track to reach their 2030 clean technology targets. While reaching net zero will require more than just these nine technologies to be scaled up, their current status serves as a clear indicator of whether these regions are on track to reach net zero by 2050.

Who is most Worried about Heat and Air Pollution in India?, Verner et al., Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

Most people in India are worried about severe heat and air pollution in their local area. Younger and middle-aged adults are more likely than older adults to be “very worried” about severe heat and air pollution. Indians with Bachelor’s degree or higher are more likely to be very worried about severe air pollution.

New Mexico 360 Groundwater Report, Follingstad et al., New Mexico Groundwater Alliance Members

Treat aquifers as critical infrastructure. Accelerate aquifer mapping, monitoring, and characterization. Expand statewide groundwater metering. Develop a statewide groundwater management framework to guide local management. Ensure that groundwater is fully understood and addressed in regional water planning and other community-based conservation initiatives.

Global Risks Report 2026, Elsner et al., World Economic Forum

The authors analyze global risks through three timeframes to support decision-makers in balancing current crises and longer-term priorities. Chapter 1 presents the findings of this year’s Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS), which captures insights from over 1,300 experts worldwide. It explores risks in the current or immediate term (in 2026), the short-to-medium term (to 2028) and in the long term (to 2036). Chapter 2 explores the range of implications of these risks and their interconnections, through six in-depth analyses of selected themes. Uncertainty is the defining theme of the global risks outlook in 2026. GRPS respondents viewed both the short- and long-term global outlook negatively, with 50% of respondents anticipating either a turbulent or stormy outlook over the next two years, deteriorating to 57% of respondents over the next 10 years. A further 40% and 32%, respectively, view the global outlook as unsettled over the two- and 10-year time frames, with only 1% anticipating a calm outlook across each time horizon. As global risks continue to spiral in scale, interconnectivity and velocity, 2026 marks an age of competition. As cooperative mechanisms crumble, with governments retreating from multilateral frameworks, stability is under siege. A contested multipolar landscape is emerging where confrontation is replacing collaboration, and trust – the currency of cooperation – is losing its value.

Carbon farming in organic agriculture. Considerations under EU policy, Lisa Sinnhuber, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and IFOAM Organics Europe

The author outlines the challenges that organic farmers face within current carbon crediting schemes, and sets out guidelines on what to consider before participating in carbon farming initiatives.

Reenergizing Nuclear, Houwink et al., Columbia Business School

Properly managed nuclear is safe, land efficient, and low waste compared with other energy sources. Nuclear energy use has decreased from its peak of 17% to 9% today, and deployments have moved from Europe and the United States to India and China. Nuclear is expected to generate 7% to 11% of global electricity by 2050, growing capacity 1.5 to 3x. There are four pathways for the future of nuclear power: Extending the lifetime of nuclear plants, which has the lowest LCOE and can be safe; building new large reactors, which would significantly reduce emissions but is costly and time intensive; building small modular reactors (SMRs), which provide more flexible nuclear power, but LCOE is still highly uncertain; and nuclear fusion, which addresses many of nuclear’s problems, if the technology can be commercialized.

Solar met 61% of US electricity demand growth in 2025, Jones et al., Ember

Solar generation met a large proportion of US electricity demand growth in 2025, including in regions where demand rose most. It met all the rise in daytime electricity demand and, supported by batteries, also met much of the rise in evening electricity demand.

Renewable Energy and Jobs. Annual Review 2025, Renner et al., The International Renewable Energy Agency and the International Labour Organization

The authors show that renewable energy employment worldwide has continued to grow. They estimate there are at least 16.6 million jobs in renewable energy employment globally. Despite record capacity additions in 2024, employment growth was moderated by economies of scale; automation and other forms of technological innovation; excess equipment manufacturing capacity; and grid bottlenecks leading to curtailment of electricity generation. The authors found that women still face barriers to hiring and career advancement, and people with disabilities are only just beginning to receive more opportunities. They conclude that the human side of renewable energy is still too often overlooked or taken for granted. Continued growth in renewable energy deployment will keep adding to employment in the sector. This means that education and training need to be a key component of a comprehensive policy approach that brings together deployment support, finance and investment, industrial and trade policies for supply chain building, economic development and revitalization, and inclusive workforce development.

Global Water Bankruptcy. Living Beyond our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era, Madani et al., United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health

The authors argue that the world has entered a new stage: more and more river basins and aquifers are losing the ability to return to their historical “normal.” Droughts, shortages, and pollution episodes that once looked like temporary shocks are becoming chronic in many places, signaling a post-crisis condition the author calls water bankruptcy. The authors propose that a fundamental shift is needed in the global water agenda—from repeatedly reacting to emergencies to “bankruptcy management.” That means confronting overshoot with transparent water accounting, enforceable limits, and protection of the water-related natural capital that produces and stores water—aquifers, wetlands, soils, rivers, and glaciers—while ensuring transitions are explicitly equity-oriented and protect vulnerable communities and livelihoods. Crucially, the authors frame water not only as a growing source of risk, but also as a strategic opportunity in a fragmented world. It argues that serious investment in water can unlock progress across climate, biodiversity, land, food, and health, and serve as a practical platform for cooperation within and between societies. Acting early, before stress hardens into irreversible loss, can reduce shared risks, strengthen resilience, and rebuild trust through tangible results.

Insurance and reinsurance under climate stress: managing systemic risk in global supply chains, Mikael Mikaelsson, Stockholm Environment Institute

As climate change accelerates, global supply chains – long optimized for efficiency rather than resilience – are increasingly exposed to a rising tide of climate-related disruptions. These shocks are rarely isolated. They cascade across borders and sectors, disrupting production, logistics, and trade in ways that reveal deep systemic vulnerabilities in the arteries of the global economy. At the same time insurance and reinsurance, the financial mechanisms historically relied upon to absorb such shocks, are being tested by the growing complexity, frequency, and severity of climate hazards. The author draws on a literature review and expert consultations with senior climate risk specialists across the European (re)insurance ecosystem to explore how insurance interacts with climate vulnerability in key sectors and supply chains. They also investigate the changing nature of insurance in a world of compounding risk, and outline what this means for economic stability, sectoral preparedness, and future adaptation efforts.

Climate Update 2026: Social Perspectives on the Climate Protection Debate, More on Common

How do people in Germany view the climate protection debate at the beginning of 2026? New data show that despite increased competition from other political and social challenges, support for climate action remains high. However, it is important to strengthen confidence to ensure a fair and forward-looking implementation. The authors analyze how attitudes, expectations, and key areas of tension have developed in the climate protection debate in Germany. The study builds on our many years of research and offers the current social context for all those who work politically, civil society or communicatively on climate protection issues.

Neighborhood Scale Building Decarbonization. A Toolkit for Advocates and Implementers, Zoë Cina-Sklar and Sonal Jessel, Climate and Community Institute

Neighborhood-scale building decarbonization shifts the unit of building decarbonization from the building to the block, from the individual to the community. By approaching decarbonization at the scale of a block or a neighborhood, all residents in the chosen geography benefit and per-home project costs can decrease through economies of scale. Importantly, it also helps manage the gas transition and ensure that lower-income households are not stuck on aging gas infrastructure. When done right, it can also offer an opportunity to go beyond simply installing electric appliances to also address environmental toxins, improve energy efficiency, and install solar and battery storage. This approach lowers utility bills and creates healthy homes for all residents, regardless of whether they are rich or own their home.

Nature security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security, Government of the United Kingdom

This assessment is an analysis of how global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse could affect UK national security. It shows how environmental degradation can disrupt food, water, health and supply chains, and trigger wider geopolitical instability. It identifies 6 ecosystems of strategic importance for the UK and explores how their decline could drive cascading global impacts. This assessment supports long-term resilience planning. Publishing the assessment highlights opportunities for innovation, green finance and global partnerships that can drive growth while safeguarding the ecosystems that underpin our collective security and prosperity. About New Research

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Museum climate school materials funded by Shell Channel News Catherine Early 22nd January 2026 Teaser Media

January 21, 2026 Submitted by email to: Los.Angeles_Anaheim@hsr.ca.gov Attn: Los Angeles to Anaheim Draft EIR/EIS Comment from RailPAC Dear CHSRA staff, The Rail Passenger Association of California and Nevada (RailPAC) is an all-volunteer non-profit passenger rail advocacy group, founded in 1978.  RailPAC supports the Preferred Alternative, the Shared Passenger Track Alternative A, with 30 miles […]

Minneapolis, MN (January 21, 2026) | The Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy (CEED) stands in solidarity with Minnesota’s immigrant communities and those mobilizing to protect them, and supports this Friday’s ICE OUT Minnesota: Day of Truth & Freedom general strike, march and rally. Across Minnesota, we will use our collective action to pause the economy and take action to be heard on January 23.

Our communities in Minnesota are living through an ongoing escalation of violence and fear due to a surge of ICE raids and brutality that have terrorized Black, Brown, Indigenous and immigrant families across the state. 

On January 23, hundreds of local organizations, faith groups, unions and businesses are joining forces to call for ICE and other federal forces to leave Minnesota immediately. Together, we are calling for accountability for ICE’s unlawful attacks on our communities and demanding an end to funding for ICE and its racist agenda of raids and brutality. We are also calling on Minnesotan and national companies to stop doing business with ICE and assert 4th Amendment rights by refusing ICE entry into their businesses. Join us at the march and rally in downtown Minneapolis at 2:00 PM on January 23. 

Why CEED Stands in Solidarity with ICE OUT Minnesota

Environmental justice and immigrant justice are inseparable. The same systems that extract wealth from communities and devastate the land also criminalize migration and exploit immigrant workers. Immigrant communities are on the frontlines of the climate crisis and pollution, while also facing  disproportionate enforcement, surveillance, and displacement. As we organize for community-controlled renewable energy and local economic alternatives, we must oppose all forms of state violence against the communities building these alternatives.

There can be no democracy without justice. CEED’s vision of energy democracy depends on robust democratic institutions, constitutional protections, and the ability of communities to organize without fear. The human rights violations documented by ICE in Minnesota—including illegal detentions, warrantless stops, and the killing of Renee Nicole Good—undermine the very democratic foundations our work depends upon. When federal agents operate outside the law with impunity, it weakens all our rights to organize, speak out, and challenge systems of extraction and oppression.

A just transition requires justice for all. CEED’s work centers the leadership of frontline communities in building a regenerative economy rooted in energy democracy and community control. The ICE surge terrorizing Minnesota communities which cost Renee Nicole Good her life is a direct attack on the communities we work alongside. There can be no just transition when we live under threat of detention, family separation, and state violence.

Despite the attacks on our communities, we are seeing a powerful outpouring of solidarity through mutual aid efforts here in Minnesota. Volunteers are going door to door and distributing groceries to vulnerable neighbors, while mothers are patrolling the streets to document and deter immigration raids. Lawyers are out in the streets defending the right to protest, while neighbors are raising funds to pay for legal fees and bonds.

CEED recognizes that our staff, partners, and communities across Minnesota are directly impacted by ICE activities. We see you, we stand with you, and we commit to using our voice and resources to support this urgent call for justice, accountability, and human rights.

CEED encourages staff and partners in Minnesota to support these efforts and participate in ICE OUT Minnesota: Day of Truth & Freedom on January 23, in ways that feel right, and if they choose to do so. You can learn more and sign the pledge at iceoutnowmn.com

From our home in Minneapolis, the Center for Earth Energy and Democracy (CEED) works toward just transition, energy democracy, and climate justice at state, regional and national levels. We believe that front line communities must lead the transition from an extractive economy to one rooted in regeneration, cooperation, and community control.

The post CEED Stands in Solidarity with ICE OUT Minnesota on Jan. 23 appeared first on CEED.

This is a re-post from the WMO Press Office

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has confirmed that 2025 was one of the three warmest years on record, continuing the streak of extraordinary global temperatures. The past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated.

Key messages

• Past 11 years have been 11 warmest on record
• Temporary cooling by La Niña does not reverse long-term trend
• Ocean warming continues unabated
• WMO consolidates eight datasets for single authoritative source of information
• International data exchange underpins climate monitoring

The global average surface temperature was 1.44°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13°C) above the 1850-1900 average, according to WMO’s consolidated analysis of eight datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year.

The past three years, 2023-2025, are the three warmest years in all eight datasets. The consolidated three-year average 2023-2025 temperature is 1.48 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the pre-industrial era. The past eleven years, 2015-2025, are the eleven warmest years in all eight datasets.

“The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. High land and ocean temperatures helped fuel extreme weather – heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlining the vital need for early warning systems,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

“WMO’s state of the climate monitoring, based on collaborative and scientifically rigorous global data collection, is more important than ever before because we need to ensure that Earth information is authoritative, accessible and actionable for all,” said Celeste Saulo.

WMO’s announcement was timed to coincide with the release of global temperature announcements from the dataset providers.

These include the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5), Japan Meteorological Agency (JRA-3Q), NASA (GISTEMP v4), the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAAGlobalTemp v6), the UK’s Met Office in collaboration with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (HadCRUT.5.1.0.0), and Berkeley Earth (USA). This year, for the first time, WMO also factored in two additional datasets - the Dynamically Consistent ENsemble of Temperature (DCENT/UK, USA) and China Merged Surface Temperature Dataset (CMST).

Figure 1: Annual global mean temperature anomalies relative to the 1850-1900 average shown from 1850 to 2025 for eight datasets as shown in the legend.

Six of the datasets are based on measurements made at weather stations and by ships and buoys using statistical methods to fill gaps in the data. Two of the datasets – ERA5 and JRA-3Q – are reanalyses which combine past observations, including satellite data, with models to generate consistent time series of multiple climate variables including temperature. The key datasets all use slightly differing methodologies and so have slightly different temperature figures, and even annual rankings.

2025 was ranked the second warmest in DCENT and GISTEMP; third warmest in the other six, Berkeley Earth, CMST, ERA5, HadCRUT5, JRA-3Q, and NOAAGlobalTemp.

The actual average global temperature in 2025 was estimated to be 15.08 °C- however there is a much larger margin of uncertainty on the actual temperature at around 0.5 °C than on the temperature anomaly for 2025.

WMO – the UN agency for weather, climate and water - seeks to provide a consolidated authoritative analysis to support decision-making.

Ocean Heat

A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences said that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system.

About 90% of excess heat from global warming is stored in the ocean, making ocean heat a critical indicator of climate change. From 2024-2025, the global upper 2000 m ocean heat content (OHC) increased by ∼23 ± 8 Zettajoules relative to 2024, according to the study led by Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That’s around 200 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2024.

Regionally, about 33% of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions, while about 57% fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins.

The study found the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in 2025 was 0.49 °C above the 1981–2010 baseline and 0.12 ± 0.03 °C lower than in 2024, consistent with the development of La Niña conditions, but still ranking as the third-warmest year on record.

A new report from Oxfam Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power shows billionaire wealth reached $18.3 trillion in 2025, the highest level in human history. That’s more than the GDP of China, the world’s second largest economy. In fact, since 2020, billionaire wealth has increased by 81%.

All of this happens while one in four people don’t regularly have enough to eat, and nearly half the world lives in poverty. Families face rising costs for basics like food, rent, and electricity. Public services are stretched thin. Climate disasters hit harder and more often.

But what is worrying is that this small group holding extreme wealth, isn’t just buying luxury. They are buying control. Political outcomes. And of course, more fossil fuels. Billionaire power is building a dystopian, unliveable world with many government allies helping lock it in. Here is how: 

Billionaires are buying democracy, and blocking climate action

Oxfam’s report is clear: extreme wealth doesn’t sit quietly in bank accounts. It gets turned into political control. Alongside getting richer, billionaires are tightening their grip on the institutions meant to serve the public.

The research finds that billionaires are now 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people. That imbalance shapes real decisions, deciding what gets funded, what gets blocked, and whose voices are ignored.

And when billionaire political interests dominate, the consequences are brutal and predictable:

• climate action slows, fossil fuel expansion is protected, regulation is weakened, and public money gets funnelled into corporate profit instead of community needs.
• People demanding justice face crackdowns, shrinking civic space, and rising repression.

Oxfam points to the US Trump administration as a warning sign: a pro-billionaire government agenda that slashes taxes for the super-rich, undermines global cooperation to tax corporations, rolls back action on monopoly power, and boosts billionaire portfolios. But this isn’t confined to one country. Oligarchy is going global, and it’s undermining societies everywhere.

And it doesn’t stop at economic policy. Oxfam warns that civil liberties and political rights are being rolled back globally. 2024 marked the nineteenth successive year of decline, with a quarter of countries curtailing freedom of expression. When people protest, governments increasingly respond with violence.

Our bills are going up as their fortunes explode

In 2025, billionaire wealth surged by $2.5 trillion which is what is held by the bottom half of humanity (4.1 billion people). Oxfam estimates this money would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.

At the same time, people are told there’s “no money” for clean energy, resilient infrastructure, or strong public services. Communities are pushed to accept austerity and “tough choices,” while extreme wealth concentrates at record speed.

Oxfam links these choices to real harm: governments slash aid budgets, directly hitting people living in poverty and potentially contributing to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030.

The result is a world where life feels more unaffordable and more unstable, and where climate action gets treated like an optional extra, instead of a survival plan.

The climate crisis is a business model for the super rich

Billionaire lifestyles are high-emitting, and that matters. But the deeper problem runs through the economic model itself: billionaire wealth is built on extraction and climate plunder.

Many billionaires profit directly from industries tied to pollution and destruction: fossil fuels, mining, deforestation, and corporate land grabs. Their money shapes the political decisions that keep these industries protected, subsidized, and expanding.

And the fallout hits everyone else: higher bills, weaker public systems, polluted air and water, and escalating climate risks. Communities in the Global South and frontline regions pay first and worst while the people most responsible stay insulated from the damage.

They control what we read (and believe)

Billionaire power doesn’t stop at politics. It reaches into the media and the information systems we rely on every day.

The Oxfam report shows how billionaire power doesn’t stop at politics — it spreads into the media and information systems we rely on every day. Billionaires now own more than half of the world’s largest media companies, and they also control all the main social media platforms, giving a tiny group of ultra-rich people enormous influence over what information gets amplified, what gets buried, and how public debate is shaped.

Oxfam points to examples like:

• Jeff Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter/X, and Patrick Soon-Shiong’s ownership of the Los Angeles Times.
• In France, the report highlights how far-right billionaire Vincent Bolloré took control of CNews and reshaped it into a French version of Fox News.
• And in the UK, Oxfam notes that three-quarters of newspaper circulation is controlled by just four super-rich families.

This concentration of media power matters because it doesn’t just influence what people read, it shapes what people believe is possible, normal, or worth fighting for. Oxfam warns that when billionaires dominate media and social platforms, minority voices and dissenting perspectives get pushed out, while scapegoating and disinformation spread more easily. The report points to structural exclusion too: only 27% of top editors globally are women, and just 23% belong to racialized groups, reinforcing whose stories get centered, and whose get ignored.

This also fuels polarization, making it harder to build the public pressure needed for real climate action, and easier for fossil fuel interests to keep operating in plain sight. And while we’re distracted, the fossil fuel machine keeps running.

Oxfam also shows how governments enable this captured information ecosystem. Governments allow billionaire control of platforms to deepen, and in some cases even use these platforms to track, punish, and silence critics. Oxfam points to Kenya, where authorities use X to track, punish, and even abduct and torture government critics. And after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter/X, one study found hate speech increased by around 50%, showing how billionaire control over platforms can rapidly reshape what’s normal, visible, and tolerated online.

When billionaires control the narrative, they don’t just defend their wealth, they protect the system that keeps them on top.

The path forward: tax justice, climate justice, people power

The climate crisis demands more than good targets and speeches. It demands a shift in who holds power. Governments need to stop pandering to the ultra-rich and start delivering for people and the planet. That means:

• taxing extreme wealth to reduce its political dominance
• investing in renewable energy, clean transport, social housing, and strong public services
• protecting civic space and the right to organize and protest
• building real firewalls between wealth and politics

People are already pushing for this shift. Across countries, communities are organizing, demanding accountability, and refusing to accept a world run by billionaires and fossil fuel corporations.

Billionaire power is real. But people power is bigger. And when we move together, the future changes.

The post Billionaire Wealth Just Hit $18.3 Trillion. Why that’s bad news for the rest of us. appeared first on 350.

For much of modern history, humans have been taught to see other species at a distance — as resources, symbols, data points, or representatives of a category rather than as beings with inner lives. Science, religion, and culture have all played a role in reinforcing the idea that humans stand apart from the rest of the living world, uniquely endowed with intelligence, emotion, and agency.

And yet, across disciplines and traditions, that story has been unraveling during the last few decades. Advances in animal cognition and plant behavior research, long-term field observation, and new respect for traditional  Indigenous ecological knowledge have revealed something both radical and deeply familiar: Other species think, feel, remember, communicate, and relate, often in ways that challenge our assumptions about what intelligence and empathy even look like. Learning to truly see them requires not mastery, but attention.

Sy Montgomery has spent decades practicing and writing about this kind of attentive relationship with other species. A naturalist and author of more than 40 books for adults and children, Montgomery has spent decades observing animals up close, from octopuses and turtles to pigs, dogs, and wild creatures encountered briefly in the field. Her work invites readers into relationships with other species not as abstractions, but as individuals, each with their own ways of being in the world.

In this conversation with Bioneers, Montgomery reflects on how humans lose — and can relearn — that way of seeing; what animals have taught her about empathy, identity, and attention; and why cultivating curiosity and care across species may be one of the most important practices of our time.

Bioneers: So much of your work invites readers to see animals as individuals, not abstractions. How did that way of seeing begin for you, and how has it evolved over time?

Sy Montgomery: I think most of us begin life seeing animals as individuals. As children, that comes naturally. But somewhere along the way, many adults lose that way of seeing. For a long time, science itself reinforced the idea that an animal was simply a representative of its species, not a unique being. Behavioral research used to treat animals that way, and frankly, I think the researchers themselves knew it was nonsense.

That began to change in a very visible way when Jane Goodall went into the field in 1960 and refused to number the chimpanzees she studied. She named them. She recognized immediately that each one had a distinct personality and history. Louis Leakey chose Goodall deliberately — she wasn’t trained as a scientist, and he wanted someone who might see something new. And she did. Today, especially in field biology, the first thing you’re taught is to figure out who’s who. Otherwise, nothing you observe will make sense.

In that regard, I don’t think I have changed very much since I was a child. I’ve always believed animals are individuals. What can be challenging is recognizing individuality in species that are very unlike us — reptiles, or marine invertebrates, for example. But once you pay attention, it becomes undeniable. Every octopus I’ve met has had a completely distinct personality. The same is true of turtles.

There’s nothing special about me in being able to see this. If I can do it, anyone can.

Sirocco the kakapo, an endangered flightless parrot in New Zealand, attempts to copulate with Sy’s head. Photo by Nic Bishop.

Bioneers: Why do you think we lose that way of seeing as adults? What do we gain — or lose — by that shift?

Sy: I think one reason is that it becomes much easier to experiment on animals, kill them, and eat them if we pretend they don’t have thoughts, feelings, or individual lives. There’s a real incentive to strip away individuality and dignity, because acknowledging it would demand responsibility.

A lot of this traces back to René Descartes and the idea that only humans think: I think, therefore I am. That notion flies in the face of both evolution and common sense. Evolution shows us that thinking, remembering, imagining the future, and feeling emotions all offer adaptive advantages. If loving your offspring or your mate helps a species survive, why would those capacities suddenly appear in only one species? That would be absurd.

Even the way we talk about evolution gets this wrong. We still call it a “theory,” though it’s long been proven fact. And evolution tells us we are connected — emotionally, cognitively, biologically. Our science says that. And so do our sacred stories. Every creation story, from every culture and religion, tells us that we are part of a family. We are related. We are similar. And we need one another.

When we forget that, when we deny kinship, we lose not just empathy for other species, but something essential about ourselves.

Bioneers: Have you ever encountered animals you thought didn’t show signs of empathy?

Sy Montgomery: Yes, but I think it’s important to remember that not seeing something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It often just means we haven’t learned how to look yet.

For a long time, people used “bird brain” as an insult, assuming birds were stupid. What that really reflected was our own failure to recognize the complexity and power of a bird’s intelligence. Today, we know that birds like parrots and crows are extraordinarily smart. They make and use tools, plan for the future, and remember past events. Intelligence doesn’t have to look like ours to be real.

The same is true when we talk about empathy. When we don’t recognize it in an animal, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist — it may just be expressed in a way we don’t yet understand. Size doesn’t tell us much, either. A small brain can be incredibly powerful, and intelligence can be organized in ways that challenge our assumptions altogether.

Take octopuses. Their brains don’t resemble human brains at all. You wouldn’t even recognize the structure as a brain if you were looking for something familiar. And yet they are astonishingly intelligent. Or consider sea urchins. They don’t have a brain in the way we define one, but increasingly scientists are suggesting that they are a brain — that their entire bodies process information in a distributed way, rather than in a single centralized organ.

These discoveries invite us to rethink what a “brain” even is, and what cognition can look like. Sea urchins don’t have eyes, yet they can perceive color, sometimes in ways we can’t. Octopuses can change color instantly to match their surroundings, even though they don’t have color receptors in their eyes. For years, people assumed they were colorblind. The truth was that we simply hadn’t figured out how they were seeing.

The lesson, again and again, is to keep looking. To stay curious. 

Bioneers: Is there an animal encounter that truly surprised you? Something that defied your expectations?

Sy: My first encounter with Athena, a Giant Pacific octopus, in March of 2011 completely surprised me. I didn’t know what to expect, but one thing I did not expect was for her to seem clearly excited to see me … clearly curious. She looked me in the eye. She reached out and tried to touch me.

That moment knocked me off my feet.

Octopuses are so radically different from us. Half a billion years of evolution separate humans and octopuses. I didn’t expect to be able to read her at all. These are powerful, venomous animals, and yet I never felt fear. I also never felt aggression from her. Even when octopuses grab you, which they sometimes do, it has never felt threatening to me.

What surprised me most was realizing, in real time, that I could understand her intentions. I knew when she was curious. I knew when she was calm. I knew when she was engaged. And I hadn’t gone into that encounter expecting any of that. So I know I wasn’t projecting my own feelings onto her. I simply didn’t anticipate that kind of connection was possible.

To be seen, and to see in return, across such an immense evolutionary distance was thrilling. It changed my understanding of what relationships across species can look like. 

Enjoying the company of a pinktoe tarantula at the spider lab of Sam Marshall. Photo by Sam Marshall.

Bioneers: Of all your immersive encounters, is there one animal experience that most changed how you understand yourself as a human?

Sy: I’m not sure I understand myself as a human at all. I didn’t really identify as human when I was a child—I thought I was a horse for a while. My pediatrician told my mother I’d grow out of it, and I did … when I realized I was actually a dog.

I joke about that, but there’s something sincere in it. Animals have always felt like my teachers. In How to Be a Good Creature, which is a memoir told through thirteen animals, I was forced to look closely at what each of those beings showed me about how to live. Animals are already perfect at being what they are. We’re the ones who struggle.

My first dog, Molly, taught me what I wanted to do with my life. She was my older sister, even though technically I was older. I wanted to go into the woods with her and learn how to understand the world the way wild animals do. In many ways, that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Other animals have taught me different lessons. Christopher Hogwood, our pig — who lived to be fourteen and died peacefully in his sleep — was a profound teacher. But it isn’t only the animals who live with us who shape us. Sometimes it’s a brief, unexpected encounter in the field that opens a door and changes how you see everything.

What animals have given me, above all, is a way to practice openness and compassion. Not just toward other species, but toward other humans as well. In a time when it’s easy to dismiss people who think differently as evil or stupid, animals invite us to do something harder: to try to understand another being on their own terms.

If you can stretch your imagination enough to consider the inner life of an octopus — an animal with nine brains that can taste and see with its skin — you learn how to put yourself into another way of being. It’s a kind of training in perspective-taking. And it’s a voyage I would recommend to anyone.

Bioneers: In your writing, you balance scientific rigor with deep emotional presence. How do you navigate that line?

Sy: I’m trained first as a journalist, and one of the earliest lessons you learn in journalism is to trust your reader. You don’t try to shove your opinion down someone’s throat. You show them what happened, and you let them come to their own understanding.

So I try to describe what the animal did, as clearly and accurately as I can. And I can also tell the reader how I felt when that animal did it. But I don’t want to draw the conclusion for them. I don’t want to force my feelings onto the reader. I want them with me on the journey and then arriving at their own meaning.

That approach requires restraint. It’s tempting, especially when you care deeply, to tell people what they should think. But I believe readers are far more powerful than that. If you trust them, they’ll often come to insights that are richer and more lasting than anything you could dictate.

My goal is to create the conditions for connection — to open a space where the reader can encounter another being, and then decide for themselves what that encounter means.

Sy exploring the rainforest canopy of Amazonian Peru. Photo by Dave Meyer.

Bioneers: What feels most important to offer young readers right now, especially amid ecological uncertainty?

Sy: I don’t think of children as the leaders of tomorrow. I think they’re the leaders of today. Kids have an enormous influence, not just on their own futures, but on how their families live and even how they vote.

Years ago, a friend of mine who trained educators told me about a study showing that most conservation and environmental information reaching parents didn’t come from newspapers or the internet. It came from their kids. Children go home and say things like, “We shouldn’t kill possums; they eat ticks,” or “We need to stop using plastic bags because they hurt sea turtles.” Kids are powerful messengers.

They also have a natural affinity for the living world. Why wouldn’t they? Humans were hunter-gatherers until very recently, and paying attention to the natural world was once essential to survival. If we nurture that attentiveness instead of dismissing it, kids can become agents of real change.

Every child has some kind of power. Every child has something they love and some talent they can bring to it. What we need to offer them is the truth: knowledge is power, and love is power.

Bioneers: What do you think humans most misunderstand about other species or about our place among them?

Sy: I think we tend to fall into false binaries. Either we assume other species are so unlike us that they fall outside our sphere of care, or we expect them to be so much like us that when we notice a difference, we don’t know what to do with it.

I think the truth is far more interesting. We need to celebrate both our sameness and our difference. I love the ways I’m different from my dog. He can hear things I can’t hear, see in the dark, run faster than I ever could, and experience the world through scent in ways I can barely imagine. That’s a whole sensory universe I’ll never inhabit, and I find that thrilling.

At the same time, there are ways we clearly connect. He understands when I’m happy or sad. He loves affection. I love affection. That shared emotional ground matters, too.

It’s not so different from our relationships with other humans. You don’t want to spend your life in a hall of mirrors with people exactly like you. Difference is part of the joy. But neither do you want to be so alien to one another that connection becomes impossible.

When we approach other species with that mindset — curious, open, and willing to be surprised — relationship becomes a source of delight rather than domination. And that shift changes everything.

The post To Be Seen by an Octopus: Sy Montgomery on Attention and Kinship appeared first on Bioneers.

Though there are sections of border wall that have been in place for decades, the desire of the current regime to build a complete wall which would stretch nearly 2000 miles from the Pacific Ocean in California to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas is unprecedented. If successful, such a wall would mark the first time in human history that a continent has been cut in half by a man-made structure.

The post Resistance Grows as Border Wall Construction Threatens Jaguars appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

Headline News:

• “Experts Reveal Stunning Change In Global Energy” • Energy think tank Ember has published positive new data about wind and solar energy. According to reporting by Electrek, renewable energy is growing so much that it is actually outpacing global electricity demand. And dirty power usage is predicted to remain flat. [The Cool Down]

Wind turbines (Serge Le Strat, Unsplash, cropped)

• “EU Leaders Talk Coordination Over Greenland As Trump Readies For Davos Meetings” • The showdown between the US and its NATO allies over Greenland looks set to be a dominant topic as leaders gather at this week’s World Economic Forum event in Davos. President Donald Trump says US ownership of the island is “imperative.” [ABC News]
• “The World Has Entered An Era Of ‘Global Water Bankruptcy’, UN Warns. What Does It Mean?” • A report from the United Nations University warns that pollution, soil degradation, water overallocation, groundwater depletion, and deforestation have combined with global heating to cause “irreversible damage” to the planet’s water supply. [Euronews]
• “(Another) Record Month For EV Sales In China! ” • Plugins scored another million-plus sales in December, reaching a record 1.34 million units. The overall market was 2.26 million units, down a harsh 14% YOY, so the plugin vehicles’ market share was 59%, while full battery EVs reached a 35% share. The final 2025 plugin share was 54%. [CleanTechnica]
• “NNG Launches Major Seabird Monitoring Studies” •  The Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm is launching one of the most comprehensive seabird and marine monitoring studies in Scotland to gather continuous data on how key bird species behave around operational turbines. The study has a focus on the 450-MW project itself. [reNews]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

01-26 * 13:00 - AT meeting (Bea)

01-29 * 13:00 - FT Open forum (Bea)

02-02 * 13:00 - Strategy meeting for Global Alliance of RD (Bea)

02-04 * 13:00 - Radical Democracy TG meeting (Bea)

02-14 * 16:00 - Ivan Illich evento en Oaxaca (Bea)

02-20 * 13:00 - Learning and Education Group meeting (Bea)

Did climate change wipe out the Galápagos damselfish (Azurina eupalama)?

This once-common, reef-dwelling fish — described by the Galápagos Conservancy as a “shimmering jewel” — hasn’t been seen since the 1982-1983 El Niño Southern Oscillation, which devastated the ecology around the Galápagos. Fueled by climate change, the weather event brought months of warm water to the normally cooler areas where the fish lived and decreased supplies of the plankton they depended on for food.

By the time weather conditions returned to normal, the damselfish was nowhere to be found.

Engraving of the Galápagos damselfish, originally published by Heller & Snodgrass (1903).

Divers have spent the past 40 years looking for the fish, to no avail. A 2025 paper published in the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation concluded that the species should now be considered “likely extinct,” although it encourages ongoing environmental DNA sampling just in case the animal persists.

In a press release about this research, the Conservancy wrote that simply mourning this species is not enough. “Every species lost is a page torn from the book of life. But there’s still time to write a different ending. Let this story move us. Let it motivate us. Because we can still make a difference — if we choose to act.”

Sadly the Galápagos damselfish is not an isolated story. This past year scientists announced many other species we appear to have lost. Their stories are often haunting, but they can motivate us to learn from our mistakes, take advantage of conservation opportunities, and act to prevent further erosions of the natural world.

Here are the stories of the past year, drawn from scientific papers, media reports, and the IUCN Red List.

Christmas Island shrew (Crocidura trichura)

This tiny but loud species — “its distinctive shrill squeaks could be heard all around as one stood quietly in the rainforest,” according to a 2004 species recovery plan — was last seen in 1985, although its final days really began in the first decade of the 20th century, when humans carried rats (and the rats carried diseases) to Christmas Island. That was just the first blow, though. After that came nonnative yellow crazy ants, cats, and other predators. Then came roads, habitat loss, and — finally — the arrival of yet one more nonnative predator, common wolf snakes, in the 1980s. The last two known shrews were found mid-decade; they died soon after, and the species has long been feared extinct. Last year the IUCN calculated the slim possibility of their continued survival and made it official.

The 52-square-mile Christmas Island — a territory of Australia — may not be very big, but it looms large in the extinction crisis. Isolated from other land masses by hundreds of miles of ocean, dozens of unique species had the opportunity to evolve there. That worked just fine until humans arrived and knocked the delicate system out of whack. This shrew is at least the fourth extinction of the island’s unique species. Let’s hope it’s the last.

 

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Mimo jiaoyue

A paper published in February 2025 described this freshwater mussel for the first time … and declared its possible extinction. The authors based its name on “an ancient Chinese term for the moon, used to describe the shell’s shape as being as round as the bright moon in the night sky.” The species was native to Lake Fuxian in China, but the paper points out that the lake is highly polluted, with low levels of dissolved oxygen, and the shoreline has been destroyed by development. The paper reports that no living specimens have been found and pollution levels suggest it’s “highly unlikely that any surviving populations remain.” (A 2021 paper identified a host of threats to this lake, including “rural domestic pollution, farmland runoff pollution, urban domestic pollution, phosphorous chemical pollution, and tourism pollution.”)

And this species may not have been the only one to disappear from the lake: Freshwater mussels rely on specific fish species to host their larvae, and the authors suggest that M. jiaoyue’s unidentified host species may have also gone extinct.

Dryadobates erythropus

Sometimes we find evidence of extinction not in the wild but in museums or other scientific collections. That’s the case with this 14-millimeter (.55 inches) frog, described by researchers as a new species based on a “badly desiccated and extremely fragile” specimen that had been collected by pioneering herpetologist Doris Cochran in Brazil in 1963 (and stored at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, ever since).

Photo: Taran Grant

The authors noted that the site where the original specimen was collected “has been transformed into a highly developed residential and commercial area lacking suitable habitat,” so it seems unlikely the frog persists in the wild.

Like other so-called “rocket frogs,” this species had a thin, streamlined body, a pointed face, and probably the ability to leap many times its body length. Too bad they couldn’t jump out of the way of humanity.

Ngutu kākā (Clianthus puniceus)

This shrub with delightful red flower clusters hails from New Zealand’s North Island, where it hasn’t been seen in the wild since 2015, although it still exists in a handful of herbariums. The reasons for its disappearance remain unclear, but it seems likely to have fallen prey to nonnative herbivores such as feral goats, red deer, and snails. Extensive surveys have failed to turn up any free-growing populations, so the IUCN this year assessed the plant as “extinct in the wild.”

A related species, C. maximus, persists in the wild — barely — with about 150 known plants (a number New Zealand’s Department of Conservation is actively working to increase). Both species are collectively known as “Kākābeak” because their flowers are shaped like the beak of the kākā parrot (Nestor meridionalis).

 

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Slender-billed curlew (Numenius tenuirostris)

This once-wide-ranging bird led our annual extinction list in 2024 after a scientific paper declared it lost due to overhunting and habitat loss. This year the IUCN used the paper as the basis for wider scientific consensus and similarly listed the species as extinct.

1905 illustration of slender-billed curlews, courtesy Biodiversity Heritage Library

Eugenia acutissima

This Cuban plant hasn’t been seen since 1952 and probably fell victim to agricultural development; it was only observed by scientists once. In 2025 the IUCN declared it extinct.

Delissea sinuata

Native to the Waianae Mountains of Oʻahu, this plant hasn’t been seen since 1937. Nonnative species have heavily degraded its former habitat — another example of why Hawai‘i is often referred to as the “extinction capital of the world.” It would be easy to spot if it still existed, because it grew up to four feet high and bore striking purple berries.

Diospyros angulata

Proof that science takes its time: This plant from the island of Mauritius (home of the infamously extinct dodo) was last seen in 1851. The IUCN finally published an assessment identifying the species as extinct in 2025. The likely causes of its extinction include logging, grazing, soil erosion, and competition from nonnative plants and animals.

Syzygium ampliflorum

This tree grew on an active volcano — Mount Galunggung in Java, Indonesia — which last erupted over a nine-month period beginning Oct. 8, 1982. The eruption killed 2,000 people, wiped out 88 villages, and presumably caused this plant’s extinction — that is, if it hadn’t already been killed off during earlier eruptions in 1894 and 1918. An expedition in January 2025 failed to turn up signs of this plant’s existence, and a paper published in September suggested it should now be considered possibly extinct. If so, that would make it one of the few extinctions on this list not directly linked to human activity.

Brunoniella neocaledonica

This small, flowering herb from New Caledonia was only documented twice, in 1967 and 1968. Its only habitat has suffered from frequent fires and grazing from nonnative Rusa deer. The IUCN assessed it as extinct in 2022 but only published that in 2025.

Another rarely documented New Caledonian herb — Pytinicarpa tonitrui — faced the same threats and has also been declared extinct.

Kākāpō parasites

New Zealand’s critically endangered kākāpō parrots (one of our species to watch in 2026) nearly went extinct a few decades ago. Conservationists saved the species by moving the last of these flightless birds to safe, predator-free islands. They’ve been doing fairly well ever since and may experience a baby boom in the year ahead, but they’ve lost something else along the way: their parasites. A study published this past July found more than 80% of the parasite species previously associated with kākāpō prior to the 1990s have disappeared. Of the 16 parasites the researchers identified, only three remain on the birds.

Sirocco, the famous kakapo, pokes out of the brush in 2012. Photo: New Zealand Department of Conservation

The paper suggests that four of these parasites were associated exclusively with kākāpō and, with no other species to host them, have gone extinct.

This might seem like a “no big whoop” deal, but parasites rarely deserve their bad reputation. They often play important ecological roles — research suggests they can help keep our immune systems healthy and may even protect us from any new, potentially more destructive parasites that arrive.

Their disappearance, meanwhile, is a sign that natural systems are deeply disturbed — and if a habitat can’t support a parasite, what does that mean for the fate of the host species?

A press release about this research gives us further food for thought. It reminds us that parasites live on a small proportion of the population of their host species, so when the bigger species become endangered, the parasites are likely to go extinct faster than the hosts (a process called secondary extinction or coextinction). This means parasite declines could be considered an early warning system and tip us off to problems in the hosts.

At the same time, the paper warns that we may have underestimated the rate of parasite extinction worldwide and failed to account for them in our documentation of disappearing species. Case in point: What if every extinction announced this year also involved the extinction of one or two parasite species?

So let’s spare a moment to think about these lost species — and maybe give those that remain a little extra attention and appreciation.

Madeiran large white (Pieris wollastoni)

This striking, 2-inch butterfly once flew in Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal, but hasn’t been seen since 1986. The IUCN SSC Butterfly Specialist Group assessed it as extinct in 2023, but that wasn’t published to the IUCN Red List until last year. The cause of its extinction remains unclear, but possible factors include pesticides, a virus, or the decline of the plants the butterflies’ larvae depended on.

Conus lugubris

This poor little cone snail was once abundant on the Cape Verde Islands, which have since become a tourist mecca. Rapid coastal development since the late 1980s has destroyed the snails’ habitat and the species is now presumed extinct.

Leptaxis vetusta

This Portuguese land snail was scientifically described in 1857 based on a fossil shell and has never been observed alive. The IUCN this past year assessed it as extinct.

Mastigodiaptomus galapagoensis

This small copepod (a type of crustacean) lived until recently in El Junco, a high-elevation freshwater crater lake on San Cristóbal island in the Galápagos that has no naturally occurring fish. An illegal attempt to establish a tilapia fishery there in 2005 or 2006 devastated the lake’s ecology. By the time efforts to eradicate the nonnative fish began in 2008, the lake held an estimated 40,000 tilapia. Native invertebrates didn’t stand a chance. A paper published in 2021 suggested this had caused an extinction; the IUCN this year gave broader consensus to that sad reality.

Snowy owls (Bubo scandiacus) in Sweden

Sometimes species disappear on the regional level, which is known as extirpation rather than extinction. This year the conservation organization BirdLife declared snowy owls regionally extinct in Sweden, a decade after the last sign of the birds breeding in that country.

BirdLife says this should serve as a warning for all northern countries in which snowy owls still roam, where climate change is rapidly altering ecosystems and making them less hospitable to these iconic birds (and so many other species in the process).

Thaumastus teixeirensis

Another land snail, this time from Brazil. Scientists have previously identified dozens of other species in this genus, but this one slipped by until a paper published this past year. Evidence of the species emerged from sambaquis — shell mounds left as monuments by prehistoric people. Researchers found the shells for this new species in these mounds and wrote that “efforts to find similar living specimens, or even empty shells, in that region were fruitless, strongly suggesting that the species is currently extinct.”

Acropora corals

Not an extinction, and not an extirpation, but about as close as you can get: A paper published this past October warned that an “acute heating event” along the Florida Keys in 2023 killed between 97.8% and 100% of elkhorn (Acropora palmata) and staghorn (A. cervicornis) coral colonies. So many corals died that further reproduction remains unlikely, leaving the species in this area “functionally extinct.” This is climate change in a nutshell, folks.

Elkhorn coral spawning. Photo: Brett Seymore/National Park Service

Several Italian plant species

A massive study of the vascular plants of Italy (i.e., most plants other than mosses and the like) reassessed 628 species, resulting in conservation status updates for 44% of them. The 100-plus authors fanned out across the country and found that the fate of 57 species has improved. But they also found that 176 species fared worse than their previous assessments, and the researchers confirmed several regional and national extinctions, mostly in aquatic habitats.

Among the losses:

• • Atriplex mollis in Sardegna
  • Coleanthus subtilis in Trentino-Alto Adige
  • Taraxacum pauckertianum in Toscana
  • Aldrovanda vesiculosa all over Italy
  • Mentha cervina in Abruzzo
  • Nuphar lutea and Nymphaea alba in Sicilia
  • Utricularia minor and vulgaris in Toscana
  • Potamogeton gramineus and Sonchus palustris in Veneto
  • Crucianella maritima in Calabria
  • Juniperus sabina in the Marche

Other countries would do well to follow the lead of these Italian botanists. As they write in the paper, “This research also underscores the importance of botanical collections and historical records to reconstruct the history, dynamics, and current distribution of plant species, and addresses challenges such as limited access to the collections. This study is not only a milestone in Italian floristics but also provides a replicable methodology for updating national floras globally.”

Six bandicoots

These long-unseen (and in some cases newly identified) Australian marsupials got their first — and last —entries on the IUCN Red List this past year when all were listed as extinct species:

• • Northern pig-footed bandicoot or Yirratji (Chaeropus yirratji) and southern pig-footed bandicoot (C. ecaudatus) — Previously considered one species, they were reassessed as two species in 2019 using a combination of fossil records, Aboriginal oral accounts, bones, and taxidermied specimens. Unseen since the 1950s and 1930s, respectively, the two bandicoots probably disappeared due to introduced predators (like cats and foxes), changes in fire regimes instituted by European settlers, and habitat degradation by livestock. The rest of the bandicoots on this list faced similar stories.
  • Nullarbor barred or butterfly bandicoot (Perameles papillon) — Last seen alive in 1928 and identified as their own species in 2018 based on museum specimens. The only known photos of this species were rediscovered in 2025.
  • South-eastern striped or southern barred bandicoot (Perameles notina) — Last seen in the mid-19th century.
  • Liverpool Plains striped bandicoot (Perameles fasciata) and southwestern barred bandicoot or Marl (P. myosuros) — Previously considered subspecies, these bandicoots were elevated to full species status in research published in 2018. They were last seen in 1846 and 1907, respectively, and cats once again get the blame for most of their declines.

Three Caribbean lizards

A recent study took a deep dive into the DNA of forest lizards from the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and Hispaniola and shook things up quite a bit, ultimately defining 35 new species — including one that lives near Goldeneye, Jamaica, where author Ian Fleming wrote his James Bond novels (they of course named the species Celestus jamesbondi). In the process they declared the Altagracia giant forest lizard (Caribicus anelpistus) and yellow giant forest lizard (Celestus occiduus) “critically endangered (possibly extinct)” (assessments already made by the IUCN Red List under different common names) and added a newly identified species, the black giant forest lizard (Celestus macrolepis), to the list of lost species.

Armeria maritima

An odd case to wrap up this list: Botanists considered this species “extinct in the wild,” with the last living samples growing at Utrecht University Botanic Gardens in the Netherlands. But recent DNA tests of the living plant and 19th-century specimens showed that the gardens actually held a hybrid of two different Armeria species. That allowed them to declare that Armeria arcuate is truly extinct — but at the same time it illustrated the value of botanical gardens and herbarium collections, which can still provide critical scientific evidence even if the samples are decades or centuries old. Many herbarium collections themselves face extinction in an age of scientific budget cuts, so that’s an important message we’d do well to take to heart.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

The Curlew, the Cactus, and the Obliterated Whitefish: The Species We Lost in 2024

The post Rocket Frog, Damselfish, and Bandicoots: The Species Declared Extinct in 2025 appeared first on The Revelator.

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Do solar panels release more emissions than burning fossil fuels?

Solar panels produce far less emissions than coal or natural gas.

“Lifecycle emissions” counts all aspects of raw materials, manufacturing, transport, installation, operation, and disposal. A major National Renewable Energy Laboratory review of thousands of studies found that while some emissions are generated when solar panels are manufactured and shipped, their lifetime emissions are much lower than fossil fuels. Coal’s lifecycle climate pollution is about 23 times higher than solar power, and natural gas about 11 times higher.

Solar panels also “pay back” their upfront emissions within a few years of operation, offsetting emissions from their manufacture. Since modern panels often last 30 years or more, they will continue to provide decades of low-emissions electricity after their payback..

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Sources

National Renewable Energy Laboratory Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Electricity Generation: Update

IPCC Technology-specific Cost and Performance Parameters

US Department of Energy End-of-Life Management for Solar Photovoltaics

International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology Solar Panel Heat Emission and its Environmental Impact

Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles

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