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The article highlights how agribusiness lobbying undermines European Union's Green Deal, leading to policies favoring growth over environmental concerns, risking sustainability goals.

Growing scientific awareness, strong regulations, and effective management have begun to fulfill the promise of recovery in the ocean. However, many efforts toward ocean recovery remain unsuccessful, in part because marine ecosystems and the human societies that depend upon them are constantly changing. Furthermore, recovery efforts are embedded in marine social-ecological systems where large-scale dynamics can inhibit recovery. We argue that the ways forward are to (i) rethink an inclusive definition of recovery that embraces a diversity of stakeholder perspectives about acceptable recovery goals and ecosystem outcomes; (ii) encourage research that enables anticipation of feasible recovery states and identifies pathways toward resilient ecosystems; and (iii) adopt policies that are sufficiently nimble to keep pace with rapid change and governance that works seamlessly from local to regional scales. Application of these principles can facilitate successful recoveries in a world where environmental conditions and social imperatives are constantly shifting.

The article focuses on the substantial shortfall in global progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and Aichi Biodiversity Targets by 2030, with climate anomalies threatening to surpass the 1.5 Celsius warming target set in the Paris Climate Agreement.

An editorial is presents the European Commission's response to violent protests by farmers, resulting in a derogation in the Common Agricultural Policy, withdrawal of bills related to pesticide use reduction and emission targets, indicating a lack of commitment to green policies, which could exacerbate Europe's environmental challenges.

The article focuses on potential challenges for scientists in 2024, including political upheaval and policy disputes, ongoing uncertainties related to the U.S. election and European green policies, the emergence of treatments for Long Covid, the impact of El Niño on global temperatures.

The article examines how states organize themselves internally to address climate change. Topics covered include the definitional categories for climate institutions, the ways that states address three core climate governance challenges, including through coordination, building consensus, and strategy development, and the ways that institutions and national political contexts influence and shape each other.

The article discusses the US pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 52 percent by 2030. It highlights using carbon capture and sequestration, maintaining reliability with higher renewables shares, and designing environmental policies to encourage decarbonization. It also involves renewables deployment, degree of electrification, and mitigation outside the power and transport sectors.

The article discusses the national climate strategies presented in 2021 at the 26th Conference of Parties as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Topics covered include a strengthening of ambition through 2030, the long-term temperature outcomes of the updated nationally determined contributions (NDC), and emissions scenarios using the Global Change Analysis.

Protected areas are intended to safeguard biodiversity in perpetuity, yet evidence suggests that widespread legal changes undermine protected area durability and efficacy. We documented these legal changes—protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD) events—in the United States and Amazonian countries and compiled available data globally. Governments of the United States and Amazonian countries enacted 269 and 440 PADDD events, respectively. Between 1892 and 2018, 73 countries enacted 3749 PADDD events, removing 519,857 square kilometers from protection and tempering regulations in an additional 1,659,972 square kilometers; 78% of events were enacted since 2000. Most PADDD events (62%) are associated with industrial-scale resource extraction and development, suggesting that PADDD may compromise biodiversity conservation objectives. Strategic policy responses are needed to address PADDD and sustain effective protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of ammonia on air pollution in the U.S. Topics include research led by atmospheric scientist Jeff Collett, the role of agricultural sources and automobiles in urban areas in causing air pollution, and air quality regulations affecting ammonia emissions in Great Britain. Possible U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policies are noted.

The article discusses the use of clean energy and the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the U.S. private sector, so as to prevent global warming, including in regard to the relationship between economic growth and GHG mitigation. An overview of the role that U.S. government policy plays in encouraging the use of clean energy is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the goal of Denmark to become the first carbon-neutral nation by 2050. Focus is given to the EcoGrid project, in which the power utility Østkraft is using cutting-edge smart grid technologies to make more efficient use of wind power. Other topics include the challenges faced by Denmark in its energy transition, which include persuading the country's European neighbors to upgrade their electrical grids to allow for easier sharing of renewable energy.

The article looks at the proposed goal of India to reduce the emissions intensity of its economy, or the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of gross domestic product, by between 20% and 25% by the year 2020. Topics discussed include the country's climate pledge, or Intended Nationally Determined tribution (INDC), per capita emissions, carbon intensity, and annual emissions.

Although it has far-reaching consequences for humanity, attention to climate change impacts on the ocean lags behind concern for impacts on the atmosphere and land. Understanding these impacts, as well as society's diverse perspectives and multiscale responses to the changing oceans, requires a correspondingly diverse body of scholarship in the physical, biological, and social sciences and humanities. This can ensure that a plurality of values and viewpoints is reflected in the research that informs climate policy and may enable the concerns of maritime societies and economic sectors to be heard in key adaptation and mitigation discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers science news briefs as of February 16, 2018. Topics include the development of immature human egg cells in the laboratory reported online in the "Molecular Human Reproduction" journal, the dismissal of astrophysicist Christian Ott before his position start at the University of Turku's Tuorla Observatory in Finland amid protest, and a revised process for environmental impact assessment fo development projects released by the Canadian government.

In 2010, the international community, under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, agreed on 20 biodiversity-related "Aichi Targets" to be achieved within a decade. We provide a comprehensive mid-term assessment of progress toward these global targets using 55 indicator data sets. We projected indicator trends to 2020 using an adaptive statistical framework that incorporated the specific properties of individual time series. On current trajectories, results suggest that despite accelerating policy and management responses to the biodiversity crisis, the impacts of these efforts are unlikely to be reflected in improved trends in the state of biodiversity by 2020. We highlight areas of societal endeavor requiring additional efforts to achieve the Aichi Targets, and provide a baseline against which to assess future progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent 70% decline in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon suggests that it is possible to manage the advance of a vast agricultural frontier. Enforcement of laws, interventions in soy and beef supply chains, restrictions on access to credit, and expansion of protected areas appear to have contributed to this decline, as did a decline in the demand for new deforestation. The supply chain interventions that fed into this deceleration are precariously dependent on corporate risk management, and public policies have relied excessively on punitive measures. Systems for delivering positive incentives for farmers to forgo deforestation have been designed but not fully implemented. Territorial approaches to deforestation have been effective and could consolidate progress in slowing deforestation while providing a framework for addressing other important dimensions of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic global changes threaten species and the ecosystem services upon which society depends. Effective solutions to this multifaceted crisis need scientific responses spanning disciplines and spatial scales. Macroecology develops broad-scale predictions of species' distributions and abundances, complementing the frequently local focus of global change biology. Macroecotogical discoveries rely particularly on correlative methods but have still proven effective in predicting global change impacts on species. However, global changes create pseudo-experimental opportunities to build stronger, mechanistic theories in macroecology that successfully predict multiple phenomena across spatial scales. Such macroecological perspectives will help address the biotic consequences of global change.

As policymakers around the world evoke grand visions of a hydrogen-fueled future, many experts say that a broader-based, nearer-term energy policy would mark a surer route to the same goals., In the glare of a July afternoon, the HydroGen3 minivan threaded through the streets near Capitol Hill. As a Science staffer put it through its stop-and-go paces, 200 fuel cells [...]

The article informs that according to a study conducted by Colmer et al., document trends in the spatial distribution of airborne particulate matter smaller in diameter. It mentions that most and least polluted tracts in 1981 remain the most and least polluted in 2016, with disadvantaged communities more likely to have higher pollution ranks at any given time in the U.S. It also mentions about U.S. federal policy-making on environmental justice.

Early environmental policy depended on science, with mixed results. Newer approaches continue to rely on science to identify problems and solve them, but use other mechanisms to set standards and legal obligations. Given the important role that science continues to play, however, several cautionary tales are in order concerning 'scientific management,' 'good science,' the lure of money, and the tension between objectivity and involvement in important issues of our time., 'The scientific debate remains open. Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are [...]