Building upon recent work on other major fossil fuel companies, we report new archival research and primary source interviews describing how Total responded to evolving climate science and policy in the last 50 years. We show that Total personnel received warnings of the potential for catastrophic global warming from its products by 1971, became more fully informed of the issue in the 1980s, began

Global wetlands and floodplains offer benefits and perils alike for human society. For example, humans rely on natural flood cycles for fisheries and agriculture, yet flooding also caused nearly one trillion USD in damage in the past 30 years and impacts millions of people every year. Looking forward, altered flow regimes or increased drought conditions are expected to affect the natural inundation

Media actors, broadly conceived, act as powerful agents shaping not only what we think about, but also how we think about it. Whilst research at the site of news content (e.g. newspaper articles) has proliferated, there is little understanding about the site of news production (i.e. the role that powerful actors play in shaping news content). Here, both news content (via newspaper articles) and news

Anxiety relating to a multitude of ecological crises, or eco-anxiety, is a subject of growing research significance. We used a multi-study mixed-methods design to explore eco-anxiety in Australia and New Zealand, validating a new eco-anxiety scale. In Study One, we developed and tested a 7-item eco-anxiety scale (n = 334), finding that this captured some, but not all, experiences of eco-anxiety. We

The agricultural use and conversion of tropical peatlands is considered a major source of land-based greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, the protection and restoration of tropical peatlands has recently turned into an important strategy to mitigate global climate change. Little research exists that has investigated the impacts and dynamics that such climate mitigation efforts evoke in local communities

We analyze European citizens’ willingness to take climate mitigation action with data on one-time donation choices from a survey of 15,951 people across 27 nations. Responses are explored with an interdisciplinary hybrid choice model that integrates principles of psychology and economics. The results suggest that only participants who are certain about the reality of global warming and believe it is

Climate change is an increasing threat to sustainable development worldwide. However, the dominant incremental policy approaches have not generated action at anywhere near the rate, scale or depth that is needed. This is largely due to the fact that climate change has historically been framed as a purely external, technical challenge. There is an urgent need for a more integral understanding that links

Prior research shows that public opinion on climate politics sorts along partisan lines. However, they leave open the question of whether climate politics and other politically salient issues exhibit tendencies for issue alignment, which the political polarization literature identifies as among the most deleterious aspects of polarization. Using a network approach and social media data from the Twitter

Women’s experiences as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) authors, have been explored showing how gender, race, nationality, etc. increase barriers to participate in the production of climate science even for the best scientists. Recently, the IPCC Gender Task Force, conducted another survey exploring barriers to participation in the IPCC that included men as well as women. The Gender

Urban greening can enhance quality of life by generating ecosystem services and has been proposed as a way of mitigating adverse consequences of global warming for human health. However, there is limited knowledge on global trends in urban vegetation and their relation to economic development and climate change. Here we studied 1,688 major cities worldwide and show that 70% (1,181) show an increase

Understanding where people depend the most on natural resources for their basic human needs is crucial for planning conservation and development interventions. For some people, nature is a direct source of food, clean water, and energy through subsistence uses. However, a high direct dependency on nature for basic needs makes people particularly sensitive to changes in climate, land cover, and land

Drawing attention to the production of vulnerability across scales in Sri Lanka, we contribute to knowledge of why certain people and social groups are vulnerable. We build our contribution on the theoretical application of ‘situated adaptation’. A situated analytical approach identifies, assesses, and responds to the everyday realities and politics of those living in climate changed environments.

Numerous hydropower facilities are under construction or planned in tropical and subtropical rivers worldwide. While dams are typically designed considering historic river discharge regimes, climate change is likely to induce large-scale alterations in river hydrology. Here we analyze how future climate change will affect river hydrology, electricity generation, and economic viability of > 350 potential

This article examines sustainability transitions in the Global South, focusing on the adoption of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems in Indonesia as a case study. Based on 55 in-depth interviews and a secondary data review, we develop an alternative analytical framework that draws insights from geographical political economy and political ecology. This alternative lens allows us to better inform the

Voluntary (or non-binding) commitments offer an action-oriented mechanism for addressing interconnected, complex and pressing issues. Though not designed to replace negotiated or binding outcomes, voluntary commitments can offer a critical tool in currently ungoverned or under-governed systems. The Blue Economy is an example of a rapidly evolving agenda where formal governance arrangements are at best

The question whether and how climatic factors influence human migration has gained both academic and public interest in the past years. Based on two meta-analyses, this paper systematically reviews the quantitative empirical literature on climate-related migration from a methodological perspective. In total, information from 127 original micro- and macro-level studies is analyzed to assess how different

Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) approaches are considered essential in several projections to meet the climate mitigation ambition of the Paris Agreement. Biomass Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) and afforestation are included extensively in mitigation scenarios but there are concerns about the feasibility of these approaches. This was explored with stakeholders from industry, non-governmental

Environmental governance research has discovered much about what drives collective action to address human-environment issues, including factors such as risk perceptions and self-efficacy. Yet the design of many studies limits our ability to draw conclusions about collective action under conditions of environmental change, especially across spatial or temporal scales. In this study, we integrate social

This study advances theory articulating the micro-level processes behind public organization adaptation to extreme weather. It tackles a persistent puzzle about the limited adaptation to extreme weather among public organizations: why does adaptation remain deficit after public organizations have experienced repeated extreme weather and some catastrophic consequences? We develop a computational agent-based

The climate crisis demands a strong response from policy-makers worldwide. The current global climate policy agenda requires technological change, innovation, labour markets and the financial system to be led towards an orderly and rapid low-carbon transition. Yet progress has been slow and incremental. Inadequacies of policy appraisal frameworks used worldwide may be significant contributors to the

Cultural ecosystem services represent nonmaterial benefits people derive from the environment; these benefits include outdoor recreation opportunities. Changes in climatic conditions are likely to shift the spatial and temporal demand for recreational ecosystem services. To date, little is known about the magnitude and spatial variability in these shifts across large geographic extents. We use 14 years

In response to rapid urbanization and intensifying climatological instability, cities are implementing major water infrastructure projects to mitigate water supply and flood risks. Drawing on four cases from South and Southeast Asia, we show how megacities’ search for additional water supplies or sites to store floodwater repeatedly disadvantage the most vulnerable groups in rural and urban areas.

In response to the clearing of tropical forests for agricultural expansion, agri-food companies have adopted promises to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains in the form of ‘zero-deforestation commitments’ (ZDCs). While there is growing evidence about the environmental effectiveness of these commitments (i.e., whether they meet their conservation goals), there is little information on how

Sustainable development demands reliable water resources, yet traditional water management has broadly failed to avoid environmental degradation and contain infrastructure costs. We explore the global-scale feasibility of combining natural capital with engineering-based (green-gray) approaches to meet water security threats over the 21st century. Threats to water resource systems are projected to rise

In order to reach climate goals, governments need to gain support from their voters for the necessary policy interventions, such as carbon dioxide taxes. Previous research concludes that people often do not support and legitimize such taxes because they perceive them as unfair. However, the notion of fairness implies a multitude of factors and despite attempts of the previous research to further nuance

Increasing evidence suggests that climate change poses direct and indirect threats to national and human security. However, the degree to which such knowledge of the risks informs decision-making remains poorly understood for key security communities, including the U.S. Department of Defense. Here, through document analysis and interviews with climate security researchers and practitioners from the

The potential of organic agriculture and agroecological approaches for improving food security in Africa is a controversial topic in global discussions. While there is a number of meta-analyses on the environmental, agronomic and financial performance of organic farming, most of the underlying data stems from on-station field trials from temperate regions. Data from sub-Sahara Africa in particular

Amid growing emphasis on community-based approaches to natural resource management, there are concerns about the lack of women participation in communal decision-making. We analyze the association between participation of women in decision-making of forest user groups in Ethiopia and several forest management outcomes. We combine longitudinal survey, administrative and forest inventory data and find

A project, firm or industry whose activities are accepted by communities and stakeholders is said to have a social licence to operate. The importance of a social licence is increasingly being realized in natural resource industries where a project or firm can impose more environmental and social costs, e.g. pollution, or strain on service delivery and housing, on communities than they are willing to

This study examines the comparative effectiveness of two important proposed solutions to climate change—energy efficiency improvement and the development and use of renewable energy sources. We focus specifically on their impacts on carbon dioxide emissions by conducting fixed effects regression analysis of panel data pertaining to U.S. states. The analysis reveals a negative relationship between both

In recent decades there has been a sustained and substantial shift in human diets across the globe towards including more livestock-derived foods. Continuing debates scrutinize how these dietary shifts affect human health, the natural environment, and livelihoods. However, amidst these debates there remain unanswered questions about how demand for livestock-derived foods may evolve over the upcoming

Over the last three decades, socio-economic, demographic and technological transitions have been witnessed throughout the world, modifying both sectorial and geographical distributions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Understanding these trends is central to the design of current and future climate change mitigation policies, requiring up-to-date methodologically robust emission inventories such

This article discusses international trade unions’ engagement with climate change. Using a qualitative methodology based on an analysis of interviews and archive documents, the article investigates the factors shaping the climate policies of the international union movement. It finds that these policies have been framed at the nexus of unions’ internal politics, coalition strategies and the institutional

Nitrogen (N) is an essential nutrient to support life, but if poorly managed, can adversely affect the environment, ecosystems and human health. The global challenge of achieving food security with minimal ecosystem degradation and human health impacts hinges on sustainable N management, which goes beyond farm level and requires concerted efforts from a range of stakeholders. While various metrics

The urgency of restoring ecosystems to improve human wellbeing and mitigate climate and biodiversity crises is attracting global attention. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) is a global call to action to support the restoration of degraded ecosystems. And yet, many forest restoration efforts, for instance, have failed to meet restoration goals; indeed, they worsened social precarities

This mixed-methods study examines the case of 30 advisory committees across 25 municipalities in Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures in northeast Japan after the 3/11 triple disasters. Drawing on synthetic control experiments, social network analysis, and case studies, we test whether the design of these committees’ policies or the traits of these committee networks improved the recovery trajectories of municipalities

We explore the relationship between political ideology and public attitudes towards a range of energy technologies (namely: biomass, coal, shale (or coal seam) gas, natural gas, carbon capture and storage, hydroelectricity, nuclear, solar thermal and photovoltaic, wave and wind energy). Our empirical analysis draws on the results of two similar nationally representative public surveys that were conducted

Financing REDD+ is complex, due to the need to seek answers not only to the question of who should finance REDD+, but also who should benefit from it. This paper examines the perceptions of REDD+ stakeholders in Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam on different aspects of financing: who should finance REDD+ and who should receive REDD+ benefits for what. Our findings show these issues are political, driven

The purpose of the present paper is to disentangle the mechanisms that connect climate change-induced disasters, inequality and vulnerability by accounting for both directions of causality. We do so by means of a simultaneous equations approach on a panel of 149 countries from 1992 to 2018. The empirical analysis reveals that countries with higher levels of income inequality suffer greater damages

Identity can improve our understanding of personal climate action, particularly when climate action becomes an expression of a person’s self. However, it is unclear which kind of self or identity is most relevant. Building on a comprehensive series of eight meta-analyses (using data from 188 published articles, N = 414,282 participants) this research systematically compares how strongly climate-friendly

Ecosystem restoration and, in particular, peatland restoration, are considered a promising greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation strategy to move towards net zero emissions. To remain within acceptable limits for projected warming scenarios, inaction with respect to GHG mitigation in the short term implies a need for even larger removals of GHGs in the longer term, which can be conceptualized as a ‘mitigation

While scenarios are used extensively for communication about climate change mitigation, little is known about the interpretation of these scenarios by citizens. We conducted a cross-country empirical evaluation of scenario visualizations for global mitigation, using online surveys in Germany (N = 379), Poland (N = 223), and France (N = 225). Each respondent received visualizations of the required changes

Designing effective mitigation policies for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture requires understanding the mechanisms by which management practices affect emissions in different agroclimatic conditions. Agricultural GHG emissions and carbon sequestration potentials have been extensively studied in the Mediterranean biome, which is a biodiversity hot spot that is highly vulnerable to environmental

Aluminium is an energy intensive material with an environmental footprint strongly dependent on the electricity mix consumed by the smelting process. This study models prospective environmental impacts of primary aluminium production according to different integrated assessment modeling scenarios building on Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their climate change mitigation scenarios. Results project

With the intensification of agriculture, the simplification of crop rotations, and the rise in demand for meat, dairy and cereal products, legume production and consumption are at an historic low in Europe. But as the environmental consequences of agriculture (biodiversity loss, high greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution) and the health outcomes of modern diets (heart disease, cancer, diabetes

As the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation, the core value of protected areas (PAs) is to maintain an area’s natural conditions (both day and night) and to restrict human-caused disturbances to biology and the environment. Although the value of PAs has been universally recognized, light pollution within them is worsening as a result of the widespread use of artificial illumination devices. Previous

Avoiding further aggravation of the consequences of global environmental change remains a complex governance challenge. Social relational structure among actors plays a key role for enhancing the capacity of collaborative approaches to environmental governance. We present an encompassing conceptual framework to advance understanding of the mechanisms that shape dynamics in environmental governance

Mobility is a key livelihood and risk management strategy, including in the context of climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced long standing concerns that migrant populations remain largely overlooked in economic development, adaptation to climate change, and spatial planning. We synthesize evidence across multiple studies that confirms the overwhelming preponderance of in-country and

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are described as integrated and indivisible, where sustainability challenges must be addressed across sectors and scales to achieve global-level sustainability. However, SDG monitoring mostly focuses on tracking progress at national-levels, for each goal individually. This approach ignores local and cross-border impacts of national policies and

The extent to which forest carbon sequestration can help mitigate climate change will be determined in large part by future land use. Here we quantify the impacts of five divergent future land-use scenarios on aboveground forest carbon stocks and fluxes throughout New England. These scenarios, four co-designed with stakeholders from throughout the region and the fifth a continuation of recent trends

Marine plastic pollution is caused by humans and has become ubiquitous in the marine environment. Despite the widely acknowledged ecological consequences, the scientific evidence regarding detrimental human health impacts is currently debated, and there is no substantive evidence surrounding public opinion with respect to marine plastic pollution and human health. Results from a 15-country survey (n = 15

Land-use activities are increasingly globalized and industrialized. While this contributes to a reduction of pressure on domestic ecosystems in some regions, spillover effects from these processes represent potential obstacles for global sustainable land-use. This contribution scrutinizes the complex global resource nexus of national land-use intensity, international trade of biomass goods, and resource