The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) aims to level carbon-related costs between domestic and foreign producers to avoid carbon leakage. Although most existing CBAM studies focus on country-level or sector-level aggregates, the policy is applied to individual goods, where emissions performance and trade strategies vary widely across producers. Item-level compliance...
Blue carbon (BC) projects are proposed in the territories of coastal communities, small-scale fishers and Indigenous peoples, yet how the tenure security of rightsholders is conveyed or protected remains uncertain. Here, by analysing 122 BC guidance documents (scientific, policy and technical), we examine the claims, obligations and interpretations of tenure. The documents reveal...
Approximately half of all methane (CH4) emissions come from freshwaters, where they are regulated by the microbial ‘CH4 filter’ whose efficiency describes the fraction of CH4 produced that is subsequently oxidized back to CO2 (methanotrophy) before emission. How the CH4 filter efficiency responds to natural warming over centuries or millennia remains unknown. Here we address this...
The high-latitude (poleward of ~50° S) Southern Ocean is recognized as a region of delayed surface warming during periods of transient CO2 increase; however, the uniformity of this pattern remains unclear. Here, based on observational and reanalysis datasets, we identify locally (50° S–61° S, 80° E–130° E) accelerated surface warming of 1.5 °C per century for 1982–2023 in the...
Hailstorms cause damage across the globe and endanger crops, but their changes in a warming climate are not well quantified. Here we apply three hail proxies to an ensemble of global model projections to show divergent changes in hail-prone condition frequency worldwide. Changes depend on whether the proxy allows instability increases to be offset by temperature or moisture...
A new wave of steel capacity additions in emerging economies threatens to lock in coal-based production for decades. By combining detailed steel production modelling with plant-level data in an integrated assessment model, we estimate that existing and planned coal-based steel plants could commit the world to nearly 60 GtCO2. If current policy and investment trends continue...
Many marine ectotherms have responded to local warming through body-size reductions and dispersal to optimal environments. However, whether endothermic marine species, such as seabirds, exhibit similar responses remains unclear owing to gaps in literature that hinder comprehensive global assessments. Here we show that globally distributed seabirds (albatrosses, petrels...
Climate targets require strong commitments from countries to be achieved. Using a multi-model analysis, we show that current net-zero pledges bring the world closer to a well-below 2 °C pathway, but an emission gap remains. Increasing ambition will be crucial: expanding the global coverage of net-zero pledges and speeding up action increases consistency with the Paris Agreement...
The sea–land breeze (SLB), driven by thermal contrasts between sea and land, forms a key circulation system in coastal cities which mitigates urban heat islands, improves air quality and supports urban liveability. Yet its response to rising sea-surface temperatures (SST) under global warming remains unclear. Here we simulate SLB evolution across 18 major coastal megacities under...
Ocean eddies are intensifying with climate change, especially in western boundary currents. Boundary currents separate coastal seas from the open ocean, but eddies drive cross-slope fluxes that can adjust the current and change shelf-sea conditions. Here we analyse two years of mooring observations in the Agulhas Current, diagnosing eddy dynamics and fluxes. We find that eddies...
Wildfires are emerging as a major driver of biodiversity loss, yet their long-term implications for species under climate change remain poorly quantified. Here we show that future wildfire exposure will substantially increase for 9,592 non-marine species identified as threatened by increased fire frequency and/or intensity. Under shared socioeconomic pathway 2-4.5, global burned...
Although the macromolecular composition of phytoplankton shapes the nutrition available to marine ecosystems and regulates global biogeochemistry, there are no mechanistic, predictive models for its global distribution. Here, using a cellular allocation model, we simulate phytoplankton allocation to proteins, carbohydrates and lipids in the present day and a warming scenario. Our...
Warming permafrost is driving widespread terrain destabilization and collapse through retrogressive thaw slumps, stripping vegetation and releasing soil carbon. Despite increasing thaw slump disturbances in permafrost regions, the time and patterns of vegetation recovery remain uncertain. Here we estimate surface greenness recovery times and compositional changes following...
Between 2015 and 2017, Antarctic sea ice underwent a drastic shift from a record high to a record low in sea ice area. While intensified atmospheric circulation and warmer upper-ocean temperatures in 2016 have been cited as possible causes for this sea ice regime shift, the contemporaneous subsurface ocean state remains poorly characterized. Here, using ~110,000 hydrographic...