Environmental policy interventions are crucial for addressing biodiversity loss and climate change, yet their effectiveness can be compromised by land-use spillovers, where efforts to reduce impacts in one place displace them elsewhere. Despite growing recognition of spillovers, they remain unevenly defined, inconsistently measured, and poorly integrated into policy evaluation and accountability frameworks

Agricultural expansion is one of the principal drivers of biodiversity loss globally. Attributing biodiversity loss to domestically consumed versus internationally traded agricultural production is vital to make supply chains more transparent and sustainable. However, such an attribution is challenging due to the complexity of agricultural supply chains and the lack of tools and data. Here, we attributed

Urgently needed policy efforts to reduce emissions are often met with divided support, arguably along political lines. While an effective path forward requires shared attitudes and cooperation, political polarization on this issue has been observed in many countries, including the UK.

We use multi-regional input–output analysis to calculate the paid labour, energy, emissions, and material use required to provide basic needs for all people. We calculate two different low-consumption scenarios, using the UK as a case study: (1) a “decent living” scenario, which includes only the bare necessities, and (2) a “good life” scenario, based on the minimum living standards demanded by UK

Urban heat management often fails marginalised dwellers and communities due to inadequate attention to multidimensional vulnerabilities and intersecting inequalities. An overemphasis on generic characterisations of ‘vulnerable groups’ rather than embodied, lived experiences of heat-related distress risks substantial maladaptive outcomes. It exacerbates thermal insecurities and suffering among most

Multinational corporations are being confronted by activists and scholars over their involvement in environmental conflicts and human rights violations. In response, many multinational corporations engage in human rights and ESG voluntary initiatives to mitigate their impacts and publicly bolster their contribution to society. These actions relate to disputed economic development theories which assert

Business success is now significantly shaped by combining competitive tactics and sustainability. The existing literature focuses on the effect of sustainability practices on corporate financial outcomes, yet under different levels of product market competition (PMC) are largely unexplored. Thus, the present study aims to analyze the link between ‘sustainable practices’ and ‘firm financial performance’

Identifying the socio-economic drivers behind greenhouse gas emissions is crucial to design mitigation policies. Existing studies predominantly analyze short-term CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, neglecting long-term trends and other GHGs. We examine the drivers of all greenhouse gas emissions between 1820–2050 globally and regionally. The Industrial Revolution triggered sustained emission growth worldwide—initially

The EU’s sustainable finance regulation classifying sustainable economic activities — known as “taxonomy” in short — has made headlines due to controversies about what can be considered a sustainable investment, and what not. This study investigates the evolution of advocacy coalitions and their strategies in the development of the taxonomy’s forestry criteria. It is built on an interpretive process

The expansion of soy production has been a deforestation driver in Brazil in both the Amazon and the highly biodiverse Cerrado savannah ecosystem. To tackle this problem the soy industry implemented a sector-wide zero-deforestation policy in 2006 in the Amazon called the Soy Moratorium. The Soy Moratorium sharply reduced the soy-driven deforestation in the Amazon. However, to date, despite substantial

Energy transitions are often studied using socio-technical transitions, just transitions and more recently, social-ecological tipping points (SETPs). While they can be important starting points for conceptualising large-scale systemic change, when applied within a regional context, they often fail to appropriately explain change. SETP concept is receiving increasing attention, but its heuristic value

Transformations of economies, norms and social relations are required to achieve the sustainability of earth systems as part of wider sustainability. This Special Issue examines how sustainability transformations are shaped by processes, practices, and pathways as sets of collective action. The contributions showcase interdisciplinary research, empirical studies, and community engagement with may arguing

This article explores the relationship between political uncertainty and carbon emissions across 34 Global South countries from 2000 to 2023, uncovering key links between policy stability and environmental sustainability. By employing the year- and country-fixed effects model alongside generalized least squares with panel corrected standard errors, this analysis highlights the impact of political instability

In June 2019, the UK government legislated a net zero target by 2050. This will directly impact the UK oil and gas industry. This study reports perceptions of key oil and gas professionals regarding the impact of transitioning to net zero on impairment, values, write-downs, and going concern in the UK oil and gas industry, as well as required net-zero-related disclosures. Data were collected through

This study aimed to examine the reasons behind the wait-and-see and resistant attitudes of local elected officials regarding energy transition projects. Although there is consensus on the importance of renewable energy in combating climate change, its implementation at the local level often encounters opposition from several actors, including elected officials. This study identified the internal, external

Food insecurity is a perennial problem in much of the developing world, with gains against hunger backsliding in recent years and climate change predicted to accelerate this trend. Food insecurity is highly disruptive to rural livelihoods and can lead to dramatic shifts in food production strategies and resultant land use. However, studies to date have yet to outline the overarching patterns of land

There is evidence of increased links in media coverage between anthropogenic climate change and heatwaves, wildfires and flooding events. This usually pertains to major disasters, but that is a relative concept as the notion of disaster is contextual and disasters are devastating at smaller scales for the people impacted. Media reporting of the Alpha Road/Tambaroora bushfire in the central-west region

Understanding trade-attributed greenhouse gas (GHG) inequality from a global value chain (GVC) perspective is essential for advancing global sustainability. This study examines the distribution and influencing mechanism of trade-attributed GHG inequality across 49 economies from 1995 to 2022. We integrate a GVC decomposition model with an optimized regional environmental inequality index to assess

Negotiations are ongoing but fraught for designing a new global science-policy panel for chemicals and waste pollution. In this Perspectives article, we challenge three assumptions guiding these negotiations. First, the new panel should resemble the existing panels of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Inter-governmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem

Climate Policy Integration (CPI) is key to mainstreaming and harmonising mitigation and adaptation in policy responses to climate change worldwide. However, little is known about how CPI can be applied in practice, beyond single policy areas, particularly in the integration of adaptation and mitigation responses. We investigate this in the context of responding to climate impacts such as extreme heat

The EU Biodiversity Strategy (EUBDS) for 2030 aims to conserve and restore biodiversity by protecting large areas throughout the European Union. A target of the EUBDS is to protect 30 % of the EU’s land area by 2030, with 10 % being strictly protected (including all primary and old growth forests) and 20 % being managed ‘closer to nature’. Even though this will have a positive impact on biodiversity

Facing urgent climate risks, many human and non-human actors are adapting to climate change with adaptations that sometimes shift vulnerabilities to other actors. Shifting vulnerabilities is a type of maladaptation and understanding them is a critical component of adaptation planning given the growing incidence of maladaptation across many sectors and regions. This review creates an analytical framework

With intensifying climate change impacts on dryland regions, it is essential to better understand how actors relate to each other to sustainably manage natural resources. The literature on environmental governance networks has studied actor collaborations, but it is only starting to investigate networks that sustain conflictive situations. Moreover, while actors traditionally defined as powerful have

Environmental change is escalating across the globe, threatening the livelihoods and wellbeing of millions of people. Substantial effort and resources have been committed at a global scale to support adaptation projects in affected communities to confront these changes. Yet not everyone has equal capabilities to adapt, guide adaptation decisions, and contribute to envisioning alternative futures. Drawing

Throughout Australia, social-ecological systems are in decline. Ecological restoration has been identified as a key process for reversing this decline, but the recovery of social-ecological systems following ecological restoration is rare. As ecological restoration is a social practice as much as it is a natural science practice, regulatory frameworks have a key role to play in either promoting or

Transformative adaptation requires transformation among those who fund, plan, implement and evaluate interventions. In response, we emphasise the need for donor and implementing organisations to self-reform to create the necessary space and support for adaptation projects that embrace a transformative ethos. We argue that projects can appropriately centre justice as the primary goal of transformative

Motonormativity is a shared bias whereby people judge motorised mobility differently to other comparable topics. This works against societies addressing climate and public health crises effectively. A social-ecological explanation has been suggested for the phenomenon, in which motonormativity is shaped by people’s environments, but this has not been tested. Here we used a large international sample

Vulnerable groups living in climate-sensitive areas are facing unprecedented risks. Their perception of the changing climate and its impacts has potentially significant influence over the choices they make in response. However, our understanding of the climate change perceptions of many vulnerable groups, and the key environmental and social predictors of public understanding of climate risk, is insufficient

Complex global social-ecological challenges of our time such as climate change, biodiversity loss or, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic can neither be comprehensively understood nor properly addressed by employing a single disciplinary or sectoral perspective. For this reason, more and more large inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) initiatives are on the rise, intending to open up the silo-like production

More than 1 degree of global warming has been reached and once projected impacts are now being realized. Despite these impacts and the short timeframe available to avoid further warming, climate inaction remains a major threat to sustainable development. In this article, we bring a renewed focus to the issue of climate inaction. We unpack the systemic market failure that underpins current climate action

The argument that environmental stress is an important driver of migration has gained renewed attention amidst increasing climatic changes. This study examines whether and how two distinct environmental stressors influence migration aspirations among affected populations. Our analysis relies on two waves of original survey data of 1,594 households residing in 36 villages along the 250 km of the Jamuna

Climate change is increasing atmospheric river risk, requiring communities to build resilience and implement adaptation strategies. Effective infrastructure and emergency management are two adaptations required for communities to cope with, and respond to, acute impacts of climate-related extreme events. In 2021, Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada experienced an unprecedented, yet anticipated

Toxic trace elements (TEs) are commonly co-emitted with carbon dioxide (CO2) and pose challenges to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the extent to which carbon mitigation measures can simultaneously reduce these pollutants remains unclear. Here, we developed an integrated assessment model to evaluate the impact of China’s carbon neutrality policies on TEs emissions

Decarbonisation is progressing rapidly and different actors respond to its impacts in different ways. Whether these responses seek to resist decarbonisation, adapt to new realities, or fundamentally transform the social and economic conditions that define decarbonisation contexts depends on the actor groups in question and the resources they are able to draw upon. This paper provides an overview of

Aquatic food systems support global food and nutrition security, livelihoods, and economies, but put significant environmental pressure on the planet. The United States (U.S.) is the world’s fourth largest consumer and the largest importer of aquatic food, which makes it a good case for studying aquatic food systems. Here, we estimate the energy use, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) and blue water use

The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a key carbon offset scheme that underpins the global carbon market. This mechanism leaves out many other non-carbon considerations, including the impacts of the CDM on water governance. The CDM produces credits primarily through energy projects and CDM funded hydropower is one of the most significant outcomes of nearly two decades of carbon

Inland fisheries face multiple, intensifying threats (i.e., proximate human pressures causing degraded ecological attributes) from land development, climate change, resource extraction, and competing demands for water resources. Planning for resiliency amidst these pressures requires understanding the factors that influence an inland fishery’s capacity to adapt to system changes under multiple threats

Large volumes of organic carbon are stored in wetland ecosystems such as mangrove forests, peatlands, salt marshes and seagrass meadows. Efforts to mitigate anthropogenic climate change are transforming the governance of these naturally saturated carbon sinks. Scientific and market valuations of wetlands as carbon have prompted diverse experimentation with carbon sequestration projects and offset programs

Achieving the worldwide greenhouse gases (GHGs) reduction targets set in the 2015 Paris Agreement and other international treaties requires reaching a fast tipping point towards sustainably decreasing emissions. Compared to sectoral energy transitions, where different parameters can be easily measured, transitions in Coal and Carbon Intensive Regions (CCIRs) are more complex and thus more challenging

Climate change communication campaigns can reach many audiences cost-effectively. However, some climate messages may not work universally as there may be heterogeneity in message effects across audiences. An online experiment (N = 57,968) across 23 countries found that three climate messages had modest positive effects on support for climate action. An “Urgency & Generational” message had the strongest

As global climate change intensifies, the question of what makes a place habitable or uninhabitable is critical, particularly in the context of a potential future climate outside the realm of lived experience, and the possible concurrent redistribution of populations partly associated with such climatic shifts. The concept of habitability holds the potential for advancing the understanding of the societal

Drawing from a multiyear series of interviews with sea level rise assessors during the development of IPCC’s Working Group I volume of the Sixth Assessment Report—the first time access had been granted to researchers to observe the IPCC process—this article analyzes the social and epistemic challenges and tools (both technical and social) involved in assessing complex, uncertain science questions.

Globally, researchers and policymakers are calling for transformative climate adaptation (TCA) to fundamentally change the attributes of social, economic, and ecological systems to deal with climate risks. However, attempts to conceptualize, assess, and implement TCA are limited and often result in vague and diffuse meanings, hindering transformative action. This study synthesizes existing literature

Formal trust is an important formal institution that may significantly impact the environment. This study uses regional distrust environment as a reverse proxy variable for formal trust and studies the impact of formal trust on corporate sulfur dioxide emissions. This study finds that the environment of distrust significantly increases the sulfur dioxide emission levels of enterprises, which means

Climate change mitigation policies around the world are increasingly formulated as ‘green deals’ characterized by comprehensive packages of (‘green’) economic and societal reforms intended to bring about a just and inclusive transition to a low-carbon economy. This paper takes as its starting point what we see as a fundamental tension underlying the logic of these policies: despite making ambitious

Small island developing States (SIDS) are among the first and the most severely impacted by climate change and thus have been designated as a priority for adaptation finance. But despite their urgent need and prima facie case for climate justice, SIDS have been proportionally less successful than other vulnerable country groups in accessing climate funding via the Green Climate Fund (GCF). This research

The energy system transition is widely regarded as an important strategy to achieve carbon reduction and is aligned with China's commitment to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030. Unfortunately, most modelling approaches in the existing literature do not pay sufficient attention to inter-sectoral dynamics. By using a model-coupling approach, this paper aims to study inter-sectoral energy consumption

South America is a crucial developing region under significant pressure to reduce emissions and achieve carbon neutrality. This study fills a vital gap by comprehensively analysing the continent’s carbon emissions from both production and consumption perspectives. Utilizing the most up-to-date global Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) models, we examine the emissions embodied in the internal and external

Investments in wildfire management are increasing globally; however, frequent and intense fires continue to threaten humans and natural systems. Moreover, comprehensive assessments of fire damage and cost are lacking. Current fire risk is considered moderate compared to that under global warming of 1.5 °C. Several works link rising fire risk to the fire exclusion paradigm, land use, and climate change

Brazil’s agricultural, livestock, and forestry production is essential, feeding more than 10% of the global population. However, climate change and extremes affect quality and production, challenging the Sustainable Development Goals of eradicating hunger and poverty. Extreme weather events generate economic and social costs, driving the use of adaptation strategies, with rural insurance being one

While a considerable amount of research has been conducted on the cognitive effects of climate change, relatively less attention has been given to gender disparities in these effects. This paper utilizes nationally representative data from China to explore how climate change influences cognitive performance across genders. Our findings suggest that women demonstrate a notably stronger capacity to adapt

To confront current sustainability challenges, the European Commission aims to transition towards plant-based diets as well as shorter, regionalized value chains. Legume-based meat and dairy alternatives (LBAs) are seen as an important tool in the food system transition, replacing protein from animals with high-protein plant-based sources. However, regionalized LBA value chains require the co-occurrence

Measuring the contribution of urban nature-based solutions (NbS) to climate change adaptation is an essential, though complex, step towards understanding who benefits from them, as well as when, where, how and why. However, urban NbS are also framed as being able to meet multiple objectives relating to biodiversity conservation as well as associated social challenges. The complexity of addressing multiple

Ecosystem degradation can have substantial social and economic costs, which may vary across groups in society. In this paper, we leverage variation from the introduction of the emerald ash borer beetle to explore how invasive species-induced declines in environmental quality impact education outcomes in a metropolitan setting. Exploiting the idiosyncratic and staggered spread of the ash borer throughout

Transformative climate change adaptation planning that addresses marginalized populations is increasingly critical for the globe’s most vulnerable countries. In 2021, Peru became the first country in Latin America to incorporate both gender and an Indigenous peoples’ platform (PPICC) into its national climate change adaptation plan. Peru has simultaneously increased its mining production of critical

Circular migration, defined as migration where migrants return to their original home area, has become an increasingly important component of rural livelihoods and can significantly impact the risk management strategies of smallholder agricultural households in the face of climate change. To unpack the associations between climate change, migration decisions, and agricultural outcomes for smallholder

This paper investigates the factors that led to the national adoption of the European Green Deal (EGD) in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and shows how politicization affects national governments’ positions and commitments. Using a comparative analysis of Hungary, Poland, and Romania, our study shows that while issues of public opinion ideological leaning, fossil fuel dependency, economic context

Understanding what conditions promote or hinder energy affordability in energy transitions is crucial for coal and carbon-intensive regions (CCIRs) dealing with the trade-off between phasing out fossil fuels and deepening social inequalities. While previous studies have included household and national-level conditions, this paper addresses the research gap covering regional-level conditions by drawing

Livelihood changes associated with forced displacement caused by large dams occur in a context of socio-environmental transformation, raising the question on how resettled people cope with and adapt while experiencing environmental change. This article analyses how environmental change is connected to householdś livelihood in communities displaced by the Madeira River hydroelectric dams, Santo Antônio