India needs to balance carbon mitigation with its developmental priorities. The Indian district acts as an important administrative site where national- and state-level developmental and environmental policies are translated into ground-level implementation. In this work, we provide a replicable approach to analyze the evolution of district-level carbon emissions in near real-time. Our work shows that emissions are concentrated in a small number of districts, with this concentration increasing over time. We also find significant inter-district variation in the growth of emissions. We demonstrate the utility of high-resolution emissions data through three examples.

With India accounting for a growing share of world emissions, the country's carbon emissions trajectory is important from a global mitigation perspective. At the same time, India is simultaneously attempting to achieve both environmental and developmental goals. The district acts as an administrative site that is important for India's future trajectory, as developmental and environmental policies at the national and state levels get translated to actual implementation at the district level. In this work, we study the evolution of carbon emissions at the district level in India. We rely on the GRACED dataset that provides daily emissions information for various sectors at a spatial resolution of 0.1°. We find that 7% of districts account for ∼50% of total emissions, while the bottom 50% contribute less than 9%. This spatial concentration is intensifying over time. We also document variations in the contribution of different sectors to total emissions over the year. We demonstrate the utility of high-resolution emissions data through three examples. Our approach can aid researchers and policymakers in developing targeted interventions as it is easily replicable, goes beyond existing work in its spatial and temporal resolution, and can be adapted to study district emissions in near-real time.

We provide a replicable approach to assess the evolution of India's district-level carbon emissions in near-real-time.

How can wellbeing for all be improved while reducing risks of destabilising the biosphere? This ambition underlies the 2030 Agenda but analysing whether it is possible in the long-term requires linking global socioeconomic developments with life-supporting Earth systems and incorporating feedbacks between them. The Earth4All initiative explores integrated developments of human wellbeing and environmental pressures up to 2100 based on expert elicitation and an integrated global systems model. The relatively simple Earth4All model focuses on quantifying and capturing some high-level feedback between socioeconomic and environmental domains. It analyses economic transformations to increase wellbeing worldwide and increase social cohesion to create conditions that are more likely to reduce pressures on planetary boundaries. The model includes two key novelties: a social tension index and a wellbeing index, to track societal progress this century. The scenarios suggest that today's dominant economic policies are likely to lead to rising social tensions, worsening environmental pressures, and declining wellbeing. In the coming decades, unchecked rising social tensions, we hypothesise, will make it more difficult to build a large consensus around long-term industrial policy and behavioural changes needed to respect planetary boundaries. We propose five extraordinary turnarounds around poverty, inequality, empowerment, energy and food that in the model world can shift the economy off the current trajectory, improve human wellbeing at a global scale, reduce social tensions and ease environmental pressures. The model, the five (exogenous) turnarounds and the resulting two scenarios can be used as science-policy boundary objects in discussions on future trajectories.

Our world is facing a convergence of environmental, health, security, and social crises. These issues demand urgent, systemic solutions now that address not only environmental but also social dimensions. Weak political responses have stalled progress on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. We have developed scenarios that explore interconnections between possible climate futures, rising living costs, and increasing inequalities that fuel populism and undermine democracy to the year 2100. We propose five turnaround solutions – energy, food and land systems, inequality, poverty, and gender equality – that if enacted are likely to provide wellbeing for a majority of people plus greater social cohesion. This will support long-term industrial policies and behavioural change to reduce emissions and protect the biosphere toward a long-term goal of living on a relatively stable planet.

Our dominant economic model is destabilising societies and the planet. Earth4All found 5 turnarounds for real system change.

Avocados are a widely consumed fruit and are part of many Latin American cuisines and plant-based diets globally. However, producing avocados is water-intensive, and plantations can cause soil erosion and water stress. In Chile, avocados are produced in semiarid zones and require irrigation. They are widely consumed locally but are increasingly exported to meet growing global demand. This causes significant local conflicts over water, especially because of the system of private water rights in Chile. There are many gaps in understanding the complex and interconnected system of avocado production and international markets, especially its impacts on local communities and biodiversity.

The popularity of avocados has increased globally in alternative diets, alongside its integral role in Latin American cuisine. In Chile, avocados are grown extensively and intensively in orchards in the dry and Mediterranean climate of Central Chile. Avocado is a water-demanding crop and the severe water crisis in Chile has called attention to the conflicts caused by its water use. As most of the pressure to produce avocado comes from international demand but results in impacts on native ecosystems and local communities, avocado production in Chile is an example of a telecoupled system. Here, we characterize avocado production as a telecoupled social–ecological system in order to identify gaps in knowledge, based on a review of key studies. Research priorities include how to improve water-use efficiency, especially in the context of climate change; the impacts on biodiversity; and the socioeconomic dynamics between local communities, trade, and governance. The analysis is constrained by limited access to data and few interdisciplinary studies on the matter. To reduce the impacts of avocado production and increase its sustainability, there is an urgent need to amplify the interdisciplinary research that emphasizes the interconnections between the social and ecological components in avocado production in Chile.

Global avocado demand fuels local conflicts in Chile due to water stress and social–ecological pressures on communities.

In response to the concerns of a growing number of crises, we trace the temporal trends, distribution, and co-occurrences of shocks – sudden events with noticeable impacts – on 175 countries from 1970 to 2019. Our analysis shows that shocks have not evolved uniformly over time and space: after becoming more co-occurring between 1970 and 2000, they then showed a regionally dependent shift in patterns. Our results highlight that regional differentiation is not incidental but constitutive of polycrisis dynamics, and that any effort to theorize, anticipate, or navigate polycrisis must account for this spatial heterogeneity.

Polycrisis has emerged as a new property of the Anthropocene. Defined as the convergence of crises across multiple systems, polycrisis calls for a paradigm shift in how crises are perceived and managed. Characterizing polycrisis dynamics is the first step in that direction but is made difficult by the complex and non-linear mechanisms at play. To overcome this challenge, we adopt a social-ecological systems approach to decompose polycrisis dynamics into two interrelated processes: shocks – sudden events with noticeable impacts, and creeping changes – slow processes that have a potential significant impact on society or the biosphere. We then develop and analyse a harmonized database capturing the occurrence of six categories of shocks (climatic, geophysical, ecological, economic, technological, and conflict-related) across 175 countries between 1970 and 2019. Our analysis reveals a significant rise in shock co-occurrences until 2000, particularly at the intersection of conflict, climate, and technological disruptions. After 2000, co-occurrence began plateauing or declining in all regions, yet at different levels. Our findings highlight the importance of a regionalized and typologically nuanced approach to understanding polycrisis. Our work also paves the way to an integration of polycrisis theory and multi-hazard methodologies for developing a more effective and crisis management ecosystem.

Dynamics of the polycrisis reveal regional differences, with a possible shift in the interaction of shocks from 2000.

The need for critical minerals for various technologies for commercial and defense use has led to a range of national policy interventions. However, many of these new laws to encourage mining, or protect local industries have not considered as scientific data on mineral reserves or the economic viability of setting specific targets. The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act is a pivotal case in point that illustrates this challenge. We present a review of the range of laws and policies that have been set forth worldwide.

Growing international conflict between countries that have large mineral production and processing capacity and those which are in demand of critical raw materials for new technologies has led to a proliferation of policies that promote resource nationalism or ‘friend-shoring’. We analyzed over 400 critical raw material policies to date that have been documented by the International Energy Agency's policy tracking tool and present the findings of the six most active jurisdictions. The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act which came into force in May 2024 stands out as the most significant legislative step taken thus far but needs better interface with environmental and social data on impacts and benefits. By analyzing the challenges faced by lithium mining projects across a range of technologies and geographic locations in Europe, we suggest the use of data generated from life cycle analyses, economic geological calculations, and ecosystem service valuation in improving the implementation of such policies and also mitigate social conflicts.

There are now more than 400 critical raw material policies worldwide, but they need to be predicated in economic and geological data to be effective.

Humans are currently grappling with the challenge of nitrogen (N) management, which involves a multidimensional trade-off between the benefits of N use and the consequences of N pollution. For this study, a deliberative experiment was conducted in which five N scientists, divided into two groups, envisioned the future of NH3 use in the 2050s, adopting the perspective of an imaginary future generation. Through this experience, the study encourages scientists to adopt the proposed framework and embrace freedom to explore desirable future visions, in addition to their usual task of empirically establishing universal disciplinary knowledge.

Humans are currently grappling with the challenge of nitrogen (N) management, which involves a multidimensional trade-off between the benefits of N use and the consequences of N pollution. The urgency to address this issue is already pronounced and may escalate further due to the emergence of ammonia (NH3) as a carbon-free energy resource. For this study, a deliberative experiment was conducted in which five N scientists, divided into two groups, envisioned the future of NH3 use in the 2050s, adopting the perspective of an imaginary future generation. The study revealed that some scientists encountered what is referred to in this study as the ‘positivist gap’, which involves difficulties forming narratives about unpredictable futures that rely on arbitrary assumptions. From this experience, this study develops and illustrates a framework that incorporates (i) Future Design workshops and (ii) abstracting operation for the workshop outputs. Although conducted in Japan, this study aims to inspire similar research in other countries.

A visioning experiment showed how scientists handle nitrogen trade-offs, imagining NH₃’s roles in a complex 2050 world.

As cities like Beijing expand rapidly, green and blue spaces (GBS)—essential for ecosystem services (ESs) such as clean air, flood control, and recreation—are increasingly threatened. This 20-year study examines how urban expansion and policy interventions have shaped Beijing’s GBS. While green initiatives have increased natural areas, unchecked urban sprawl has fragmented these spaces, reducing their environmental benefits. Satellite data and urban planning analyses underscore a key lesson: maintaining well-connected natural zones is critical for urban resilience. These findings are broadly applicable for rapidly growing cities globally, urging urban planners to integrate ecological conservation with development, and to safeguard healthy environments and vibrant communities.

This study quantifies the spatiotemporal dynamics of urban GBS in Beijing, evaluating their essential role in delivering ESs and strengthening urban resilience. Although China has achieved substantial progress in urban greening, the ecological impacts of rapid urbanization on GBS configuration and connectivity have not been comprehensively quantified. Using an integrated analytical framework combining principal component analysis and multiple linear regression, we reveal how urban development strategies have shaped GBS dynamics over two decades. A spatially explicit analysis, utilizing geographically weighted regression, further elucidates the heterogeneous relationships among the normalized difference vegetation index, human footprint index, and ESs delivery capacity. Notably, socioeconomic incentives and green infrastructure governance—especially objective indicators such as forest, garden, and greenspace area—have effectively driven GBS expansion. However, urban expansion has led to pronounced fragmentation of peri-urban GBS, suggesting potential degradation of their ecosystem service support functions. These findings emphasize the need for adaptive GBS management strategies that balance ecological conservation with sustainable urban growth in rapidly developing cities.

Urban growth fragments green and blue spaces, reducing vital ecosystem services. Balancing conservation with development is essential for sustainable cities.

Several transnational corporations, investors, international organizations, and philanthropies have formed coalitions to respond to global social and environmental challenges. Do these coalitions, consisting of large-scale actors, have the capacity to contribute to the sustainability transformations that are needed, or do they perpetuate the same systemic dynamics that created the problems in the first place? We investigate this question by comparing publicly available information from five coalitions working on financial and food systems sustainability.

This paper examines whether large-scale actor coalitions (LSACs) may contribute to transformations toward equitable and sustainable futures. We use a ‘rapid assessment’ 20-variable framework to collect and analyze empirical data from five food and finance coalitions to identify their roles and capacities for transformative change. Our results indicate that LSACs implement distinct strategies to reach their goals. More specifically, due to their diverse set-ups, LSACs have the ability to raise awareness of sustainability issues, utilize ties to push forward agendas, engage in institutional policy-shaping processes, experiment with solutions, and showcase promising niche initiatives. We identify ways that LSACs’ actions can enable efforts of other change-makers who aim to change the food and finance systems and contribute to systems with high and diverse capacities for transformative change. We also discuss why the roles and lack of certain capacities of LSACs might hinder the creation of enabling conditions for transformative change within the food and finance sectors.

Coalitions consisting of powerful actors have a range of transformative capacities that, under certain conditions, can support systemic transformations within their sectors.

The COVID-19 syndemic had a strong impact on financial market volatility. This study compares traditional indices, such as the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 and the Euro Stoxx 50, with their sustainable counterparts; the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSWI); and the EURO STOXX Sustainability Index. The results show that the sustainable indices were more stable and less volatile before and after the crisis, suggesting that investors perceive less risk in sustainable companies. These findings reinforce the importance of considering sustainability in investment decisions, especially in times of uncertainty.

With the ever-increasing importance of sustainability, it is a good time for a retrospective on the impact of the COVID-19 polycrisis on stock market volatility through a comparison of traditional indices such as the S&P 500 and the Euro Stoxx 50, with their sustainability counterparts; the DJSWI; and the EURO STOXX Sustainability Index. Using GJR-GARCH and E-GARCH models, the study reveals that sustainability indices exhibited greater stability and lower volatility before and after the syndemic, suggesting a lower risk perception by investors in sustainable companies. The implied volatility analysis confirms this stability, showing a more significant impact on traditional indices. Although all indices experienced greater sensitivity to negative shocks, sustainable indices showed a faster and more consistent recovery. These findings highlight the importance of considering sustainability factors in risk assessment and investment decision-making, especially in times of crisis.

Sustainable indices in Europe and the USA showed lower volatility and faster recovery after COVID-19 polycrisis.

A remarkable shift in climate change misinformation has taken over social media streams. The conversation is no longer totally absorbed with denying that climate change exists. Instead, the ‘New Denial’ is bent on condemning solutions to climate change and their supporters. Our study meticulously analyzed this shift, using extensive methods to untangle the content of over 200,000 Tweets from 2021 to 2023. We found that the New Denial is a heated political debate that often calls up common far-right arguments, falsely accuses climate solutions as ineffective and risky, and attacks climate solution supporters.

Over the past five years, a ‘New Denial’ has emerged in regards to climate change misinformation on social media. This shift marks a transition of the dominance of rhetoric centered around denial of climate change science to attacks that seek to undermine and cast doubt on proposed climate solutions and those who support them. While much of the academic literature to date has explored misinformation about climate science, there is a great need to explore this shift and seek out increased understanding of misinformation around climate change solutions specifically. In this paper, we employ a mixed-methods analysis, drawing on data from Twitter from 2021 to 2023, to analyze the content of climate solution misinformation. We find that the New Denial is frequently centered on politically-laden debates nestled in common narratives on the right, often attacking supporters of climate solutions as harbingering ulterior motives for climate solutions that are fundamentally flawed. We use these insights to reflect on targeted interventions for climate solution misinformation on social media.

A New Denial is sweeping social media, no longer bent on denying climate science. It's new target: climate solutions and the people pushing for them.

Irrigation relies on groundwater, but depletion threatens food supply, rural livelihoods, and ecosystems. Nature-based Solutions can potentially combat groundwater depletion, typically combining physical and natural infrastructure to benefit both people and nature. However, social infrastructure (e.g., rules and norms) is also needed but is under-studied for NbS used in agricultural groundwater management. Through a narrative review, we find that social infrastructure is infrequently described with an emphasis on using Nature-based Solutions to augment supply rather than manage demand.

Groundwater faces depletion worldwide, threatening irrigators who rely on it. Supply-side interventions to drill deeper or import water greater distances have not reduced this threat. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are increasingly promoted as leveraging natural infrastructure to reduce depletion. However, there is growing evidence that without social infrastructure (e.g., social norms, capacities and knowledge), NbS will reproduce the problems of technical approaches. How can social infrastructure be implemented within agricultural groundwater NbS to overcome groundwater depletion? Through a narrative review of the literature on agricultural groundwater NbS, we evaluate how social infrastructure has been implemented to (1) enable coordination, (2) monitor and manage change over time, and (3) achieve social fit. Our analysis covers diverse cases from around the world and various points in time, ranging from ancient civilizations to present-day. We conclude that social infrastructure is essential to effective agricultural groundwater NbS but understudied. We also propose further research on NbS designs that rely only on social and natural infrastructure by focusing on ecological fit between agricultural practices and their local environments.

A review of nature-based solutions for agricultural groundwater management finds that social infrastructure is key.

Climate hazard events, such as floods and heatwaves, are becoming more frequent and severe. This paper focuses on coastal urban areas and addresses the need for implementing effective ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) measures. It highlights the importance of integrating EbA into urban planning to enhance resilience. The study proposes a comprehensive assessment framework to guide EbA implementation process at the local level. Governance system, policy framework, and funding sources are identified as key factors influencing the process. Within governance structures, the study focuses on cooperation, decision-making processes, scientific knowledge, and political support. Plans and strategies, regulations, international treaties, or agreements are recognized within policy sphere. The framework also considers the importance of sustainable funding mechanisms, including public–private partnerships and fiscal incentives, to ensure the long-term viability of EbA interventions. The framework's applicability and effectiveness are tested by assessing 10 implementation experiences in Spain and Portugal. The assessment underscores the need for adaptive governance and the inclusion of diverse stakeholders in planning and execution. The research concludes with the need for a systemic approach to integrating EbA into local adaptation strategies, to bridge the knowledge gap between researchers and practitioners, foster adaptation in coastal urban environments, and increase climate resilience.

This article explores air pollution as a globally connected issue using the telecoupling lens, which links distant regions through environmental and human systems. It shows how pollution connects Africa and the Global North, demonstrating that actions in one place affect people and air quality elsewhere. Drawing on 90 research sources, it looks at how satellite data helps monitor air quality and finds that most studies focus on natural sciences, with limited input from social sciences and less frequently from African researchers. The authors highlight the need to close data gaps and call for more inclusive, cross-disciplinary, and international cooperation in air quality research. Overall, the study pushes for fairer, more connected approaches to understanding and tackling air pollution worldwide.

Air quality (AQ) is a transboundary phenomenon resulting from globalized interactions between coupled human and natural systems. Drawing on the telecoupling framework, this article argues that pollution flows, socioeconomic systems, and policy responses interconnect Africa with the Global North and identifies important data gaps for better understanding these interconnections. Through a meta-synthesis of 90 academic and gray literature sources, we analyze the use of satellite data for air quality monitoring, with a particular focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and African scientific participation. Our findings highlight a strong reliance on natural science approaches, limited integration of social science perspectives, and ongoing marginalization of African voices in shaping research agendas. We argue for a transformative research agenda rooted in interdisciplinary integration, inter-regional collaboration, and data justice. By adopting a telecoupled lens and prioritizing inclusive development, this study provides new pathways to understand, measure, and address air pollution as a global issue with deeply local consequences.

Air pollution links Africa & the Global North–study urges data justice & inclusive, global cooperation.

The term ‘polycrisis’ is gaining attention among academics, policymakers, and the public. Unlike a single crisis, a polycrisis involves complex, interconnected risks across multiple regions and systems, often including ecological factors. This interconnectedness heightens the chances of widespread adverse outcomes or disasters, affecting various systems and triggering cascading effects. The article examines how traditional disaster studies concepts must be adapted for the polycrisis context and places historical events on a spectrum of such critical moments. It concludes with recommendations for communities to build resilience and respond democratically to these challenges.

The term ‘polycrisis’ has entered the lexicon of a growing circle of academics, policymakers, and the public. Polycrisis is a state that encompasses a complex set of risks characterized by multiple, macroregional, and often ecologically embedded linkages between inexorably interconnected systems. The article reevaluates disaster studies concepts within this polycrisis framework, locates historical events along a spectrum of such moments, and offers recommendations for democratic resilience.

Discover how the term ‘polycrisis’ redefines our understanding of interconnected risks and informs new disaster response methods.

Cities, as complex systems, are faced with increasingly diverse and connected challenges across social, economic, environmental, and health domains. To help cities address these challenges, the Future Earth Urban Knowledge-Action Network developed a cross-disciplinary urban research agenda through expert elicitations and extensive consultation. Five research themes to guide urban sustainability research were identified including: (1) advancing urban sustainability transformations, (2) ensuring equity, (3) boosting innovation in low to lower-middle income countries, (4) managing complexity and systemic risks, and (5) navigating environmental change. Advancing this agenda will require collaboration across disciplines and geographies, transdisciplinary coproduction, and enhanced support to urban science.

Cities and urban regions are at the forefront of transformations toward global sustainability. As urbanization accelerates, there is increasing demand for cities to play multiple, complex and synthetic roles across social and environmental domains within and beyond their boundaries, for example driving economic development while mitigating and adapting to global environmental changes. To help cities in meeting this challenge, urban science, a rapidly growing field that includes inter- and transdisciplinary research, needs to expand and evolve, with clear priorities. Combining expert elicitation and community consultation, the Future Earth Urban Knowledge-Action Network developed a strategic research agenda for urban science for the next decade. The urban science research agenda describes five critical research themes for scientific advances: (1) accelerate urban sustainability transformations, (2) ensure equity and inclusivity, (3) amplify innovation from the low to lower-middle income countries, (4) negotiate complexity and systemic risks, and (5) navigate environmental change. Under each research theme, we review the state of the art, identify remaining gaps, and outline key research questions needing to be addressed to advance science toward urban transformations. Interconnections across, and enabling conditions to advance, these priority research themes are discussed.

Globally co-designed urban research agenda reveals pressing priorities for sustainability and resilience.

As human development is colliding with planetary boundaries, the world is facing interconnected crises, disasters, and geopolitical conflicts that require and complicate cooperative solutions for navigating the global polycrisis between a collapse of human civilisation and a sustainable transformation of nature–society relationships. When multiple crises are compounding and become ‘overcritical’ beyond tipping points, they may trigger cascading chain reactions that overwhelm efforts to control the dynamics. Understanding the complex dynamic interaction between climate, conflict, migration, and pandemic risks offers insights to develop capabilities for effective earth system governance to facilitate a transformation from a negative to a positive nexus.

To assess the complex interplay and stability conditions of multiple risks in the polycrisis, an integrative framework involves interacting changes, sensitivities, and pathways in nature–society interaction with natural resources and human security. Results highlight the role of additive compounding and multiplicative cascading events for crisis expansion or containment which can be influenced across thresholds by interventions and governance. The analysis is specified for the climate–conflict–migration–pandemic nexus in which the interactions of climate sensitivity and conflict sensitivity affect internal stability against destabilising external factors. For a risk minimization and containment strategy, desirable is a stable low-risk case compared to unlimited risk escalation, compensated by efforts and investments enabling anticipative governance, adaptive management and cooperative institutional mechanisms, moving from individual to collective action and converting a destabilising vicious circle into a stabilising virtuous circle.

The present polycrisis is unprecedented, increasing the interconnectivity, complexity and intensity of interactions with globalisation, breeding instability, overwhelming adaptation, and requiring new anticipative governance and management capacities.

Two common myths shape thinking about shipping and oceans. First, ships transport nearly everything we consume. Second, we live on planet ocean, not planet earth. Although each claim is, in one sense, correct, each is also misleading. Ships transport 80-90% of international trade (by weight), they transport only 10.8% of the economy's material footprint. Although the ocean covers 71% of the planet's surface, it makes up only 0.12% of its volume. This article queries these widely accepted numbers. Not to ‘correct’ them but to highlight the need to question the common myths that all too often guide environmental intervention.

Ships transport 90% of everything. The planet is 71% ocean. Environmentalists reference these statistics when they advocate ‘buying local’ to reduce shipping's environmental footprint. The shipping industry references them to argue that the industry is ‘too big to fail’ and therefore should not be overly burdened by environmental regulations; furthermore, shipping's emissions are said to be ‘too small to matter,’ considering the role the industry plays in enabling globalised consumer capitalism. Yet, this article shows that ships transport only about 10.8% of everything (by material footprint) and the planet is only 0.12% ocean (by volume). This suggests that we should employ the 90% and 71% figures with caution. Evidence demonstrates that environmental policy derived from crude quantification of an industry's significance can have unintended, and at times unwanted, consequences for the world's economy and, crucially, the planet's environment. Although we do not question the global significance of either the ocean or maritime transport, we argue that for appeals to size and scale to be useful in generating ocean consciousness and guiding policy interventions they need to be questioned every time they are invoked.

Ships transport 80-90% of international trade, but only 11% of the economy's material footprint. This wide gap urges us to rethink common myths about the economy and the environment.