Yes, trees and soils can absorb and store carbon, but the carbon doesn’t stay stored forever. That’s one of the problems with how net-zero plans for the climate are being designed.
Week one in Glasgow has delivered more climate action than the world promised in Paris six years ago. But progress still falls well short of what’s required to limit warming to 1.5°C.
Research ethics focus on avoiding wrongdoing, having been developed largely in response to biomedical scandals. Climate change puts the onus on researchers to add ‘do good’ to ‘do no harm’ principles.
New research shows just 2% of the Great Barrier Reef remains untouched by bleaching since 1998. Its future survival depends on how much higher we allow global temperatures to rise.
If we fail to balance the social impacts of climate change with responsible climate action, we risk substituting one kind of harm for another – and this would be a disaster of another kind.
The pledge to end deforestation holds great potential, but Canada has some work ahead if it is to make meaningful progress on the new goal and stop ongoing forest and carbon loss.
More than 100 nations have pledged to end deforestation by 2030. But there’s no mention of the need for Indigenous people to give their prior informed consent.
Artists do more than tell us there’s a problem. They can add nuance to the complex web of interconnected issues we face and tell stories about loss, possibility and transformation.