Payments for ecosystem services (PES) have gained widespread prominence as a flagship solution for ecological challenges and attracts multi-billion-dollar annual investments. This large-scale meta-analysis analyzes the epistemic, methodological, and ethical–political assumptions of over 1,000 peer-reviewed articles on PES from 2005 to 2019. Results highlight that effectiveness of PES outcomes, design

Climate change and other anthropogenic drivers challenge the efficacy of traditional approaches to biodiversity conservation. Moreover, the extent and pace of drivers of change are projected to intensify, making ecological restoration of some ecosystems to historical baselines increasingly untenable. This new reality has sparked debates about what new approaches are needed in restoration and conservation

Private finance can contribute to the achievement of systemic climate adaptation. But the research community are yet to provide a framework for private investors and borrowers to assess the commercial viability of investments in adaptation. To date, investment cases have not been constructed with climate adaptation as the underlying investment logic - no framework explains how adaptation creates value

The non-food bioeconomy is widely recognized as a crucial strategy to address climate change. However, the growing non-food demand for biomass, such as bioenergy and bio-based products, is leading to global land use changes and consequent greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, a global region- and biomass-specific land-use emissions (LUE) inventory and the Food and Agricultural Biomass Input-Output

Visitation by wild bee species alongside managed pollinators is necessary to ensure consistent yields and fruit quality in apple fields. Wild bee species are vulnerable to several environmental changes. Climate change is expected to lead to broad-scale changes to wild bee distributions that will impact the service they provide as crop pollinators. We modelled selected wild bee species known to be important

The emotional significance of climate change for young people is becoming recognised. However, their experiences of talking about these feelings are not well understood, despite being acknowledged as an important avenue for support and social change. This article reports on a survey of 1,943 young people aged 15–19 years living in Australia. The survey examined their level of concern about climate

Farmers are at the centre of scientific and political debates about sustainability in European agriculture, but rarely do we discuss the roles of other actors who shape their behaviour. Understanding the interactions and balance of power in agri-food systems is critical to effectively govern sustainability transitions. Here, we conduct a meta-study of 71 case studies in European agri-food systems to

This study examines how communities of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, recovered from the extreme wildfire event of 2019–2020 (i.e., the Black Summer fires). Using monthly night-time radiance as an indicator of economic activity in a geographic area (i.e., a mesh block) from January 2017 to June 2021, I conducted a spatio-temporal and socio-economic analysis of economic recovery after the 2019–2020

Developing actionable climate information and integrating it into decision-making are two crucial elements for promoting effective societal responses to climate change. However, what constitutes actionable climate information, and how it is used, varies based on the actors, systems, and scales that are relevant to specific decisions. Yet, the terms ‘actionable climate information’ or ‘use of climate

Through interlinked theoretical and empirical analysis, this paper explores some important but neglected questions concerning efforts to achieve sustainability. To what extents do currently dominant forms of academic study and policy visions in this field, satisfactorily address the full political depth and scope of vital complexities in pathways for emerging social transformations? Are there dangers

When are protected areas drivers of environmental injustices and conflict, and under which circumstances may they support customary users in protecting their lands and livelihoods against extractivist development? We address these questions by analyzing the diverse roles that protected areas play in the context of environmental conflicts. We build a global database of 474 environmental conflicts in

Small-scale gold mining sustains millions of people’s lives and yet it stimulates environmental harms and social conflicts. Global environmental crises drive calls for fundamental change to how people live on the planet. For small-scale gold mining, this raises questions about whether current dynamics can provide a basis for sustainability transformations. Proposing the notion of gold lifeways to focus

Lifestyle is an integral and inevitable feature of transformation pathways consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Studies differentiating lifestyle types, clusters, or segments vary in their focus, purpose, reach, generalizability and availability. Universal frameworks are largely proprietary in nature, developed and used by market research companies

Research on community-based forest management indicates its conservation outcomes depend on local rule enforcement, extraction pressures, and community support. However, many community-based forest management projects, particularly in the Global South, also involve collaborative networks of non-state actors such as NGOs and private corporations. Many of these networks promote sustainability certification

Faced with globally pressing sustainability challenges, the e-bike provides a potentially sustainable mobility alternative. Yet, a growing consensus among researchers is that the environmental and social impacts of e-bikes are context dependent. Previous studies indicate different e-bike pathways in two major e-bike markets. In China, e-bikes seem to be a stepping stone to further motorization. In

Deltas play a critical role in the ambition to achieve global sustainable development given their relatively large shares in population and productive croplands, as well as their precarious low-lying position between upstream river basin development and rising seas. The large pressures on these systems risk undermining the persistence of delta societies, economies, and ecosystems. We analyse possible

The study of the impacts and drivers of climate change adaptation should consider gender (in)equality and women’s participation, as they both play pivotal roles. However, research on gender aspects of climate change adaptation has been limited. This study assesses gender dimensions of adaptation to climate change and determinants of smallholder farmers’ adaptation strategies in Adwa district, Tigray

Climate-related anger is present in Greta Thunberg’s speeches and the acts of Extinction Rebellion, but also in the rise of movements protesting climate policies, such as the Yellow Vests. The current study (N = 2,046) gives insight into the content of climate anger among the Norwegian public, as well as the relationship between anger and climate change engagement. Analyzing responses to the open-ended

Tropical peatlands lie at a nexus of competing sustainable development demands of enhancing food security, mitigating climate change, improving resilience and supporting rural livelihoods. Meeting United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires balancing these various demands. Progress in meeting SDGs has been slow in low to middle income countries because of difficulties in identifying

Drawing on ethnographic research with Indigenous Māori women in northern Aotearoa (New Zealand) we challenge the presumed benefits of neoliberal, infrastructural-focussed climate adaptation, and advocate for far greater engagement with multiple subjectivities and intersecting inequalities in the design of climate adaptation in Global North, settler colonial contexts. Focussing on a government-led water

Peri-urban transformations in emerging economies like India demand scientific attention given their impact on global environmental change processes. Some studies examine past or ongoing peri-urban adaptation processes, but insight into future adaptation needs and aspirations of peri-urban communities is lacking. Also, it is unknown how the high degree of informality that characterizes peri-urban areas

Experiences of poverty can manifest in multiple aspects of everyday life, often in interlinking ways. One example is ‘double energy vulnerability’, where a household faces both energy poverty and transport poverty simultaneously. This can result in trade-offs, where prioritising one essential need (e.g., transport) makes accessing another impossible (e.g., heating). Such decisions are not easily made

Disasters occurring in the wake of extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity due to climate and anthropogenic changes and require urgent responses under uncertain and dynamic conditions. In these situations, multi-agency collaboration becomes integral to an effective response due to the need to coordinate actions across geographical scales, levels of authority and sectors of society

Climate change mitigation is mostly assessed through the lens of technologies and policy instruments. However, governance and social capital are crucial factors in complex social systems and may be relevant in the formation of effective climate policies. Here, we investigate the role of quality of governance (QoG), social capital, and equality as preconditions for enacting climate policies. Relying

Youth Climate Activists are important norm entrepreneurs as humanity is increasingly awakening to the realities of accelerating climate change. They push for seeing climate change not merely through cost-benefit analysis frames but through frames of multiple climate justices. But how successful have these activists been in shifting perspectives in the context of international climate politics? This

Decision-making under uncertainty is important for managing human-natural systems in a changing world. A major source of uncertainty is linked to the multi-actor settings of decisions with poorly understood values, complex relationships, and conflicting management approaches. Despite general agreement across disciplines on co-producing knowledge for viable and inclusive outcomes in a multi-actor context

This research has applied an integrated norms model using place attachment, anti-littering descriptive and injunctive norms, and anti-littering personal norms to assess anti-littering behavioral intentions in a developing country. The research uses place attachment as a moderating factor to understand the influence of social norms on anti-littering behavioral intentions which has not previously been

This article advances a novel analytical framework for investigating the influence of political-economic processes in human-wildlife interactions (HWI) to support efforts to transform wildlife conservation governance. To date, the majority of research and advocacy addressing HWI focuses on micro-level processes, while even the small body of existing literature exploring social dimensions of such interactions

Fire management aims to change fire regimes. However, the challenge is to provide the optimal balance between the mitigation of risks to life and property, while ensuring a healthy environment and the protection of other key values in any given landscape. Incorporating cost-effectiveness and climate change impacts magnifies this task. We present an objective framework for quantitative comparison of

The Amazon has a diverse array of social and environmental initiatives that adopt forest-based land-use practices to promote rural development and support local livelihoods. However, they are often insufficiently recognized as transformative pathways to sustainability and the factors that explain their success remain understudied. To address this gap, this paper proposes that local initiatives that

Labor share is one of the most significant indicators for income distribution and social inequality. Many studies have documented its decline and provided explanations from various aspects in recent years. This study explores labor share decline through the lens of air pollution, which has been ignored in the literature. With the two-stage least square (2SLS) regression while using thermal inversion

The majority of the world’s land is held in customary tenure systems, often with overlapping claims. Designing effective policy to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation requires understanding land management choices within these systems. Using a nation-wide random sample of over 300,000 hectares of forested land in Uganda from 2000 to 2019, we examine how deforestation trends across a

Participation and collaboration of citizens and organized stakeholders in public decision-making is widely believed to improve environmental governance outputs. However, empirical evidence on the benefits of participatory governance is largely scattered across small-N case studies. To synthesize the available case-based evidence, we conducted a broad case-based meta-analysis across 22 Western democracies

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key actors in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Their aggregate emissions are significant, and they are disproportionately affected by climate impacts, including extreme weather events. SMEs also play a vital role in shaping the environmental behaviours of individuals, communities, and other businesses. However, these organisations have been largely

Many rural communities in Cameroon rely on natural sources of water (rivers, springs, and rainfall) for agriculture and domestic use. Access to and reliability of water from these sources depend on changes in rainfall and temperatures. Household roles in Cameroon are traditionally defined along gender lines, with women playing key roles in food production, home management, and caregiving. Water is

Zimbabwe intends to build resilience mechanisms against climate change while at the same time ensuring sustainable development in recognition of its climate change vulnerability and national circumstances, in line with the demands of the Paris Agreement of reducing emissions by 2030. The study examined the consistency of government policies in reducing emissions by 1278GgCO2 by 2030. The study reviewed

Carbon inequality is the gap in carbon footprints between the rich and the poor, reflecting an uneven distribution of wealth and mitigation responsibility. Whilst much is known about the level of inequality surrounding responsibility for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, little is known about the evolution in carbon inequality and how the carbon footprints of socio-economic groups have developed over

When social movements achieve some success in meeting goals, elite opponents may see compromise and collaboration with movement organizations as a desirable option. The consequences for advocacy organizations of elite concessions are contested. Some highlight the political opportunities created by elite support, such as increased access to financial resources, political processes, and new audiences

There is an urgent need to understand how anticipation processes such as scenario planning impact governance choices in the present. However, little empirical research has been done to analyze how anticipation processes frame possibilities for action. This paper investigates how assumptions about the future open up or close down anticipatory governance actions in a large number of climate-focused anticipation

Energy and mobility poverty limits people’s choices and opportunities and negatively impinges upon structural economic and social welfare patterns. It also hampers the ability of planners to implement more equitable and just decarbonization pathways. Research has revealed that climate policies have imposed a financial burden on low-income and other vulnerable groups by increasing food and energy prices

The use of wild species is extensive in both high- and low-income countries. At least 50,000 wild species are used by billions of people around the world for food, energy, medicine, material, education or recreation, contributing significantly to efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, overexploitation remains a major threat to many wild species. Ensuring and enhancing

Adaptation to climate change is a critical issue in coastal areas, at risk from sea-level rise, erosion, and sea flooding. In territories strongly urbanized and long oriented toward tourism and a residential economy, a change in coastal management and territorial development is hard to initiate. In Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (France), a leading tourism region, this article explores how local authorities

The concept of adaptive capacity is increasingly being applied to understand and predict people’s ability to adapt to the emerging impacts of climate change. Despite its potential utility, the degree to which adaptive capacity is a reliable predictor of adaptation remains unclear; evidence for a causal relationship is insufficient and conflicting. To address this gap, we surveyed 231 reef tourism companies

In the face of climate change and extreme weather events which continue to have significant impacts on agricultural production, climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has emerged as one important entry point in reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and building climate resilience while ensuring increases in agricultural productivity with ensuing implications on food and nutrition security. We examine

The production and trade of agricultural commodities, such as cocoa, have important impacts on farmer livelihoods and the environment, prompting a growing number of companies to adopt public commitments to address sustainability issues in their value chains. Though trading companies, who handle the procurement and export of these commodities, are key actors in corporate sustainability efforts, cross-country

Although climate policy diffusion is widely studied, we know comparatively little about how these global policies and the norms that surround them are used by various political actors seeking to advance their own agendas. In this article, we focus on how global climate norms are diffused differently at national and local scales and used to repoliticize or depoliticize climate change. We focus on the

Many earlier studies concluded that exposure to changes in local weather or extreme weather events prompt public interest in climate change, and in turn raise support for mitigation policies. However, these findings do not square with observations of record-breaking temperatures, and decades of failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To address this conundrum, we use Protection Motivation Theory

In order to address the pressing challenge of climate change, countries are now submitting long-term climate strategies to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. These strategies include within them potential future use of ‘negative emissions technologies’ (NETs). NETs are interventions that remove carbon from the atmosphere, ranging from large-scale terrestrial

Assessments of pesticide impacts globally and holistic policies to address them require accurate pesticide use data, but good use data are difficult to find. For comparable estimates across countries, researchers and policymakers depend upon pesticide use data collected by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). We analyze the FAO database and find declines in data reporting and data quality

This article explores deforestation and reforestation dynamics over 415,749 hectares of 25 titled Indigenous Community Lands (ICLs) in the Peruvian Amazon over forty years at three scales: total area, regions, and communities. We focus on ICLs as the territorial unit of analysis, as they are increasingly discussed regarding their importance for conservation. Additionally indigenous communities (ICs)

Fossil energy subsidies create a series of distortions that often have negative environmental and social consequences. Yet, since subsidies confer salient and tangible benefits in the form of cheaper prices, citizens are very resistant to reforms. This research investigates how to best communicate the removal of fossil subsidies using a highly powered, pre-registered study with 5,498 participants across

Indigenous Amazigh people of Morocco face dangerous climate change impacts, particularly in the form of drought and changes to the hydrologic cycles, but they also must live outside the circle of patronage under authoritarian rule by the Kingdom and the makhzen. The makhzen is the pool of elites around the King in the military, government, and business which distributes or withholds opportunities and

The social norm-based intervention is a frequently used tool for encouraging pro-environmental behavior. In designing effective interventions, however, both practitioners and researchers need more knowledge about the relationships between different norm constructs and pro-environmental behavior. In this study, we meta-analyze the predictive strength of injunctive, descriptive, and personal norms using

Agricultural production and household food security are hypothesized to play a critical role connecting climate change to downstream effects on women’s health, especially in communities dependent on rainfed agriculture. Seasonal variability in agriculture strains food and income resources and makes it a challenging time for households to manage a pregnancy or afford a new child. Yet, there are few

An increasing number of publications focus on social vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation (SVRA) towards natural hazards and climate change. Despite this proliferation of research, a systematic understanding of how these studies are theoretically grounded is lacking. Here, we systematically reviewed 4432 articles that address SVRA in various disciplinary fields (e.g. psychology, sociology, geography

Increases in the number of large-scale land transactions (LSLTs), commonly known as ‘land grabbing’ or ‘global land rush,’ have occurred throughout the lower- and middle-income world over the past two decades. Despite substantial and continuing concerns about the negative socio-environmental impacts of LSLTs, trade-off analysis on boosting crop yield and minimizing climate-related effects remains limited

Deforestation for agriculture is a key threat to global carbon stocks, biodiversity, and indigenous ways of life. In the absence of strong territorial governance, zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs), corporate policies to decouple food production from deforestation, remain a central tool to combat this issue. Yet evidence on their effectiveness remains mixed and the mechanisms limiting effectiveness