News & Comment

Security analysts and government economists increasingly present policymakers with different pictures of the same climate and nature risk. We argue that governments need a shared way to weigh these assessments, particularly given that under-preparing for a severe, irreversible outcome costs far more than over-preparing.

Climate action requires inclusive dialogue among diverse stakeholders to help inform decision-making for governance and planning. We examine how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) could broaden participation and support synthesis across regions, disciplines and participants, while underscoring the importance of human authority to safeguard AI.

LGBTQIA+ climate scientists have long encountered oppression and discrimination across society and in the workplace. We suggest specific actions, which need to be supported by more data, to make climate science more inclusive.

Marine carbon dioxide removal must advance through rigorous, transparent science, but caution cannot become paralysis. With billions of tonnes of carbon removal likely to be needed each year, we need to test promising approaches responsibly while uncertainty remains.

As the Great Barrier Reef reels from successive devastating bleaching events, researchers are working to regenerate small areas with corals selected or manipulated for better heat tolerance.

Climate change is shifting the world into new ecological states, prompting discussions of how humans and species will deal with this novelty, including how mitigation and adaptation will ultimately lead to further change.

The ‘double materiality’ framework helps guide financial policymakers in assessing the risks of climate change, but masks complex interactions within the financial system. I argue that effective policy requires more clarity on the underlying relationships and the links to specific mandates of different financial policymakers.

Extreme heat events are increasing, and urban adaptation is urgently needed for humans and non-humans to function safely under heat. Here we present a thermal justice framework and highlight how its use facilitates equitable adaptation and minimizes heat-risk displacement.

Informal adaptation can augment or replace formal adaptation with flexible and responsive actions, yet it can also reproduce and intensify existing injustices. We propose justice-oriented co-creation between informal and formal actions as a pathway for effective heat adaptation.

Climate change communication shapes how societies perceive risks and respond to them. In this issue of Nature Climate Change we examine the evolving content and methods of climate communication, the challenges of urgency and injustice, and the strategies for building effective and inclusive communication channels.

Communication is essential for keeping communities safe when climate disasters occur. Here, we explore how disaster communication informs protective actions and examine five challenges: false information, exhaustion from repeated disasters, unequal access to information, polarized climate attitudes and mental health.

Climate change communication differs across regions, shaped by unique political, economic, social and environmental conditions. These influence how climate messages are framed, received and acted upon by the local public. To explore this diversity, Nature Climate Change spoke to globally distributed scholars for their perspectives on the communication patterns, challenges and priorities in their regions.

Carbon markets reward the climate mitigation benefits of nature-based solutions but rarely value their broader societal impacts. Creating markets for verified co-benefits, such as coastal protection and biodiversity, could redirect investment towards projects that deliver larger gains for both people and climate.