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• Published: 25 February 2019

Climate research for the twenty-first century

• Bronwyn Wake 1  

Nature Climate Change volume  9 ,  pages 183–185 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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As the World Climate Research Programme approaches its fortieth anniversary, Nature Climate Change speaks to Julia Slingo, leader of a major review of the programme, about its achievements and future directions.

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Wake, B. Climate research for the twenty-first century. Nat. Clim. Chang. 9 , 183–185 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0428-6

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About USGCRP

The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was established by Congress in 1990 to coordinate federal research and investments in understanding the forces shaping the global environment, both human and natural, and their impacts on society. 

USGCRP facilitates collaboration and cooperation across 15 federal  member agencies to advance understanding of the changing Earth system. Research supported by USGCRP informs the Nation in navigating the challenges of a changing environment and identifying opportunities for a more resilient future.

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To empower the Nation and the world to anticipate and respond to urgent risks of climate and global change by creating and providing accessible, usable knowledge.

Our Strategic Plan

USGCRP's 2022–2031 Strategic Plan sets the course for federal global change research for the next decade. It was informed by input and review from federal agencies; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; and the public, and lays the foundation for meeting new and growing challenges, as well as demands for useful, accessible, and inclusive data and information. 

The Plan is organized around four pillars: Advancing Science; Engaging the Nation; Informing Decisions; and Collaborating Internationally.

Under this Plan, USGCRP will continue to build and refine understanding of global change in ways that respond to emerging needs and provide critical information for the benefit of all.

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The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative is an urgent, cross-cutting NIH effort to reduce health threats from climate change across the lifespan and build health resilience in individuals, communities, and nations around the world, especially among those at highest risk.

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New NIH/NSF Partnership Bolsters Rapid Funding to Researchers Addressing Climate-Related Disasters.  Read more about applying for Quick Response Research Awards.

First Five Exploratory Climate Change and Health Centers Funded — The NIH has awarded the first five awards to build the research capabilities of transdisciplinary teams that will be able to study the impacts of climate change on health. Read more about these Exploratory Grants for Climate Change and Health Research Center Development.

Research Coordinating Center Awarded — The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative has awarded a three-year grant to Boston University School of Public Health and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to serve as the Research Coordinating Center for this NIH-wide effort to reduce the health impacts of climate change. Read more.

Alliance for Community Engagement – Climate and Health Awards The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative has provided funding to establish four sites as part of the Alliance for Community Engagement on Climate and Health (ACE-CH). Read more.

The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative Strategic Framework includes input from the scientific and stakeholder communities. The Framework provides the initial planning of how the NIH community will address climate change and health.

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Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Innovative Technologies for Research on Climate Change and Human Health NOT-ES-24-002 First Available Due Date: April 05, 2024 Expiration Date: April 06, 2025 As a part of this NIH-wide Climate Change and Health Initiative, this NOSI encourages Phase I (R43), Direct to Phase II (R44), Fast-track (R44) and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I (R41) and Phase II (R42) grant applications from small business companies to develop commercializable tools, resources, and approaches to capture the effects of climate change and the associated impacts of extreme weather events on human health, and to support adaptation or mitigation strategies to minimize health hazards and impacts from climate change.

Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Climate Change and Health NOT-ES-22-006 First Available Due Date: July 08, 2022 Expiration Date: May 08, 2025 As part of an NIH-wide Climate Change and Health Initiative, this NOSI encourages applications that address the impact of climate change on health and well-being over the life course, including the health implications of climate change in the United States and globally.

Additional NIH Funding Related to Climate and Health

Past Funding Opportunities

Research Coordinating Center (CAFÉ RCC)

The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative has awarded a three-year grant to Boston University School of Public Health and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to serve as the Research Coordinating Center (RCC) for this NIH-wide effort to reduce the health impacts of climate change. Referred to as the CAFÉ RCC, it will C onvene, A ccelerate, F oster, and E xpand the global climate change and health community of practice. To accelerate the translation of research into practical solutions, the CAFÉ RCC will engage a diverse array of researchers and other stakeholders across government agencies, non-governmental and community-based organizations, academia, industry, foundations, and potential funders. To be part of this community of practice, visit the CAFÉ .

• Letters of Intent due January 15, 2024. Pilot Proposals are due on March 15, 2024.
• More than 900 individuals from across the globe participated in the first-ever virtual CAFÉ Climate and Health Conference February 5-7, 2024.
• NIEHS News story June 2023: NIH funds first climate and health research coordinating center
• Past Funding Announcement (RFA-ES-22-003)

New NIH/NSF Partnership Bolsters Rapid Funding to Researchers Addressing Climate-Related Disasters

The NIH has established an agreement with the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide funding to two centers housed at universities known for their disaster response expertise (University of Colorado Boulder and University of Washington). The centers will provide support for timely collection of perishable data and health research in response to climate-related disasters. The partnership enhances opportunities to bring climate science and related disciplines together with the growing NIH Climate Change and Health and disaster research Communities of Practice. Funding announcements for these awards will be posted here and by the centers.

• Available funds will support awards in the amount of $10,000 to $50,000 each.
• Proposals for this new call will be accepted on a rolling basis until funds are exhausted.
• The University of Washington Natural Hazards Reconnaissance (RAPID) Facility  will soon offer technical instrumentation, training, and resources to researchers collecting perishable exposure and health data. Principal Investigator: Joseph Wartman

Exploratory Grants for Climate Change and Health Research Center Development

The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative has provided funding to establish exploratory centers to develop innovative research environments to foster and sustain a transdisciplinary program of fundamental and applied research to explore the complex impacts of climate change on health. These P20 centers will help develop action-oriented strategies that protect health and build resiliency at the individual, community, national and global levels.

Funded Projects

Alliance for Community Engagement – Climate and Health Awards

The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative has provided funding to establish four sites as part of the Alliance for Community Engagement on Climate and Health (ACE-CH). The alliance will work to promote sustainable strategies that address the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities, while emphasizing health equity.

The ACE-CH will focus on community-engaged research, capacity building, and outreach opportunities where factors associated with social determinants of health yield residents disproportionately affected by the health impacts of climate change.

The ACE-CH will model the successful NIH Community Engagement Alliance ( CEAL ) program led by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). The new grants for ACE-CH will be administered by NHLBI. These awards began in March 2023.

Award Locations

ACE-CH Fact sheet

NIH Institutes and Centers (IC) have joined forces to educate and inform colleagues and the public about the human health implications of climate change. This series will present webinars from different ICs highlighting work in the field of climate change while promoting transdisciplinary discussion and collaboration in this concerted effort against an extreme threat to health.

• March 19, 2024, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. EDT - Climate Change, Pregnancy, and Children’s Health
• February 22, 2024, 1:30–2:30pm EST - Video
• January 23, 2024, 1:00–2:00 p.m., EST - The Complexities of Ensuring Sustainable and Healthy Diets for All; Video 
• January 11, 2024, 1:00–2:00 p.m., EST - Healthy Air as a Pathway to Climate Action;  Video
• December 7, 2023, 3:00-4:00 p.m., EST - The Double Burden of Heat Stress and Maternal Malnutrition on Newborn Vulnerability; Video
• October 26, 2023, 2:00-3:00 p.m., EDT – How Climate and Land Use Change Are Transforming the Landscape of Vector-Borne Disease; Video
• September 6, 2023, 2:00-3:00 p.m., EDT - Toward Building an Aging and Climate Resilient Society: Older Adults’ Vulnerability and Resilience to Disasters; Video
• August 16, 2023, 2:00-3:00 p.m., EDT - Empower Women in Rural India; Video
• July 20, 2023, 2:00-3:00 p.m., EDT - Climate Change and Health Disparities From the Inside Out: Weatherizing Homes to Adapt to and Mitigate Climate Change; Video
• June 7, 2023, 1:00-2:00 p.m. EDT - Considerations of Historical Climate Data and Exposure Metrics for Climate-Health Research; Video
• May 15, 2023, Noon – 1 p.m. EDT - Disasters, and Food Security: Impacts and Disparities; Video
• May 3, 2023, 1:00-2:00 p.m. EDT - Climate Change Impacts on Neglected Tropical Diseases; Video
• April 26, 2023, 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. EDT - Health Consequences of Climate Change With a Lens on Social Determinants of Health; Video
• March 17, 2023, 1:00-2:00 pm EDT – Protecting Human and Planetary Health: New Unique and Necessary Roles for Health Professionals; Video
• February 21, 2023, 2:00 PM- 3:00 PM ET: Addressing Health Disparities and Reducing Mortality due to Non-communicable Diseases During Climate-induced Disasters; Video

Past Seminar Series

NIH has selected seven established scientists with expertise in climate and health to work on the NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative. This class of NIH Climate and Health Scholars will become part of the cross-cutting NIH effort to reduce health threats from climate change across the lifespan and build health resilience in individuals, communities, and nations around the world, especially among those at highest risk. The diverse group of scientists went through a competitive selection process and will begin work with NIH staff this month until September of 2024. Each scholar is currently employed at a major university or with a research-based organization but will be hosted by an NIH Institute or Center. They will work with staff across NIH to share knowledge and help build capacity for conducting climate-related and health research. This is the second class of NIH Climate and Health Scholars.

• Meet the new 2023-2024 NIH Climate and Health Scholars
• IC Interest Statements
• NIEHS News Story: New class of seven Climate and Health Scholars named

For more information about the NIH Climate and Health Scholars program, contact Dr. Adriana Costero-Saint Denis , NIH Climate and Health Scholars Program Director.

2023 NIH Climate and Health Scholars

Locate the most relevant scientific literature on the health implications of climate change.

Climate Change and Health Literature Portal

The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative is led by an Executive Committee comprising the Directors of seven NIH Institutes and Centers. The NIEHS Director chairs the Executive Committee and NIEHS provides the Initiative's administrative home.

Executive Committee

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Rick Woychik, Ph.D. (Chair)

Fogarty International Center (FIC) Peter Kilmarx, M.D. (Acting Director)

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) Helene Langevin, M.D.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Gary H. Gibbons, M.D.

National Institute on Aging (NIA) Richard Hodes, M.D.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., M.P.H.

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) Lindsey Criswell, M.D., M.P.H., D.Sc.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver  National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Diana I. Bianchi, M.D.

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH ) Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D.

National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D.

National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) Shannon N. Zenk, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN

NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative (NIH CCHI) and Working Group

Gwen Collman, Ph.D., NIEHS, NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative (NIH CCHI) Strategic Advisor Aubrey Miller, M.D., NIEHS, NIH CCHI Co-chair Joshua Rosenthal, Ph.D., FIC, NIH CCHI Co-chair

Gila Neta, PhD., MPP, NCI, NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative (NIH CCHI) Working Group Co-Chair Regina Bures, PH.D., NHLBI, NIH CCHI Working Group Co-Chair

Fogarty International Center (FIC) Flora Katz , Director, Division of International Training and Research Aspen Reese , Health Scientist, AAAS Fellow (NIH/FIC)

National Cancer Institute (NCI) Curt DellaValle , Program Director, Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Larry Fine , Senior Advisor Mary Masterson , Program Director, Alliance for Community Engagement Climate Change and Human Health

National Institute on Aging (NIA) Emerald Nguyen , Social and Behavioral Science Administrator, Population and Social Processes

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Lee Hall ​, Chief, Parasitology and International Programs Branch

​National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) Susana Serrate-Sztein , Associate Director for Strategic Initiatives

Eunice Kennedy Shriver  National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Guillermina Girardi , Health Scientist Program Officer 

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Claudia Thompson , Chief, Population Health Branch, Division of Extramural Research and Training Ashlinn Quinn , Program Officer, Climate Change and Human Health 

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Megan Kinnane , Senior Advisor to the Director Holly Campbell-Rosen , Program Officer, Center for Global Mental Health Research 

National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Larissa Aviles-Santa ​, Director, Division of Clinical and Health Services Research Gabriel Lai ​, Program Director, Division of Integrative Biological and Behavioral Sciences

• NICHD Director’s Blog, September 2023: Addressing the Health Effects of Climate Change
• NIEHS News Story April 2023: NIH awards focus on communities most affected by climate change
• Cancer Currents Blog, April 5, 2023, Cancer and Climate Change: The Health Threats of Unnatural Disasters
• The Lancet, November 4, 2022, commentary from NIH leaders discussing new research plan on Climate and Health
• FIC Global Health Matters Newsletter September/October 2022 : NIH awards help broaden climate change research
• NIH Director’s Blog July 26, 2022: Climate Change and Health Initiative to Expand Research, Build Resiliency
• NIH Catalyst Story May 6, 2022: Why Climate Change is a Health Threat
• NIEHS News Story: Climate change spurs big new plan for health research

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Institute for a Sustainable Future

Climate & Weather

Faculty across many departments at Purdue pursue research on issues of climate change and weather impacts in a myriad of ways; some key topics this research community pursues include:

• Heat stress and weather impacts;
• Climate change and biodiversity;
• Climate and public health;
• Climate smart agriculture;
• Climate action and environmental justice

Lead: Lei Wang (EAPS)

Climate Change Impact Assessments

Scientists and decision makers from across the state have worked together to develop a series of easily understandable reports that show how a changing climate will affect state and local interests. Led by Purdue’s Climate Change Research Center (now part of Purdue’s Institute for a Sustainable Future), the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment (IN CCIA) provide the scientific research to help Hoosiers understand and prepare for the impacts of a changing climate.

Click here to view past Indiana Climate Change Impact Assessments.

Current Team Projects

Combining self-organized maps and idealized storm-scale simulations to investigate the effect of future climate change on severe convective storms.

PI: Dan Chavas ;  Co-PI: Dan Dawson;  Funding: NSF

The team is using data-based methods to examine how the environments that typically generate severe thunderstorms may change in climate model simulations. They will then test the effect of these changes on severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in simulations using a storm model. The results of both steps can be combined together to examine how severe thunderstorms may change in the future, which will help society better plan and adapt.

Ecological Tradeoffs in Water Quality and Climate Regulation in Restored Wetlands in Agricultural Landscapes

PI: Jake Hosen (ABE);  Co-PIs: Sara McMillan (ABE/EEE), Laura Bowling (AGRO);   Funding: USDA-NIFA

The team is developing a mechanistic understanding of the water quality function of agricultural wetlands and environmental regulation of other ecosystem services (ie, water for irrigation) and disservices (ie, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that drive climate change). 

A data-centric uncertainty-informed framework for resilience analytics of critical infrastructure under extreme climate events

PI: Roshi Nateghi (Ind Eng);  Co-PI: Dan Chavas (Ind Eng);  Funding: NSF

The team is working to advance the theory and practice of resilience engineering through establishing a pluralistic, data-centric and uncertainty-informed framework to efficiently characterize multi-dimensional infrastructure resilience under stochastic hazards as well as plausible infrastructure evolution (due to adaptation or mitigation strategies) and climate change scenarios.

Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia

PI: Mitch Tuinstra (AGRO);  Co-PIs: Melba Crawford (Civil); Ayman Habib (Civil);  Funding: USAID

Growing heat-tolerant maize can reduce yield losses due to climate change by up to 36% (rainfed) and 93% (irrigated). Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA, 2013-17) helped smallholder farmers in climate-vulnerable ecologies to secure their food security and livelihoods, ensured technologies' equal access to women farmers and incorporated gender-preferred nutrition traits. 50+ CIMMYT maize hybrids have been licensed to public and private partners (2015-2020) for release. By 2020, farmers had adopted 16 varieties on over 20,000 ha.

Seed Grants

The following seed grants were given to multiple Purdue faculty in fall 2021 to help initiate new climate-related projects in areas ranging from diseases in wild animals and domestic livestock to smoke taint in wine. Read below for more on their exciting new projects.

Assessing the role of climate in the re-emergence of hemorrhagic septicemia in wild animals and domestic livestock

PIs:   Wendy Beauvais   (VetMed);  Lei Wang   (EAPS)

This project's long-term aim is to determine the precise drivers of Hemorrhagic septicemia (HS) outbreaks and to predict the potential impacts of future climate scenarios.

Downscaling and visualizing climate change scenarios to advance environmental justice and promote local action

PI:  Yiwei Huang   (HortLA);   Co-PIs: Tian Guo (Research Scientist, ABE); Keith Cherkauer  (ABE, EEE); Venkatesh Merwade (Civil Eng)

This project will lay the foundation for the selection of appropriate visualization methods when communicating climate change to different stakeholders that can be utilized by all associated disciplines who work together to win local buy-in.

Capturing diagenetic production of hydrocarbons in sediments towards carbon-neutral production of drop-in gasoline replacements

PI:  Steve Lindemann   (Food Sci);   Co-PI:  Lisa Welp (EAPS)

Current biofuels approaches are typically limited to production of ethanol using yeast or recombinant bacteria. This project looks to nature for a potential solution by testing the hypothesis that the microbial mat of Hot Lake, a heliothermal lake in northern Washington, is diagenetically converted into hydrocarbons when interred in sediment.

Incorporating Community Agency in Reducing Uncontrolled Wildfires (ICARUS)

PIs:  Zhao Ma  (FNR);  Jonathan Bauchet  (AgEcon, HTM);  Ricardo Godoy   (Brandeis University)

This project seeks to address knowledge gaps in causes and prevention of wildfires in Bolivia via a pilot research project.

Andean vulcanism induced albedo as the cause and termination of the Little Ice Age

PIs:  Greg Michalski  (EAPS, Chem);  Matt Huber  (EAPS);  H. Kory Cooper  (ANTH);  Cliff Johnston   (AGRY);  Chad Jafvert   (Civil Eng);  Lisa Welp   (EAPS)

This project proposes a new hypothesis to explain global cooling that occurred between roughly 1500-1850, a period referred to as the Little Ice Age (LIA).

Understanding and Predicting the Tropical-Extratropical Relaying Pathways to Arctic Amplification

PI:  Di Qi   (MATH);   Co-PIs:  James Garrison   (Aero/Astro, ECE); Wen-Wen Tung   (EAPS); Lei Wang   (EAPS)

This proposal aims to resolve, from the fundamental level, significant obstacles to understanding and predictions of the pathways to Arctic Amplification through tropical-extratropical interactions.

Bioremediation of Smoke Taint in Wine by Engineered Yeast

PIs:  Tor N. Tolhurst   (Ag Econ);  Christian E. Butzke   (Food Sci);  Eun Joong Oh   (Food Sci)

For the proposed project the team will create technology for the wine industry to adapt to climate-change related wildfires: engineered yeast to biologically remediate undesirable smoke-taint compounds in wine.

Quantifying snowpack decline in the Colorado River headwaters beyond the instrumental record using cosmogenic nuclides

PIs:  Marissa Tremblay   (EAPS);  Keith Cherkauer  (ABE, EEE);  Nathaniel Lifton   (EAPS)

The Colorado River supplies water to >40 million people and is used to irrigate 5.5 million acres of land in the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico. In this project the team will use cosmogenic helium paleothermometry (CHP) to document the onset of snowpack loss at two pilot field sites in the Rocky Mountains of north-central Colorado.

Transforming Attitudes into Climate-Smart Action in Agriculture-Travel

PIs:  Stacey Connaughton   (Comm, PPRI);  Kayla Joy Gerdes  (Ph.D. Candidate, Comm);  Sylvie M. Brouder   (AGRY);  Jeffrey J. Volenec   (AGRY)

This project will use preliminary results from the survey to develop and launch a more thorough assessment of scientific and practitioner knowledge of the interactions between climate change and agriculture.

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MIT announces five-year plan for action on climate change

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MIT is launching a multifaceted five-year plan aimed at fighting climate change, representing a new phase in the Institute’s commitment to an issue that, the plan says, “demands society’s urgent attention.”

Citing “overwhelming” scientific evidence, “A Plan for Action on Climate Change” underscores the “risk of catastrophic outcomes” due to climate change and emphasizes that “the world needs an aggressive but pragmatic transition plan to achieve a zero-carbon global energy system.”

To that end, MIT has developed a five-year plan to enhance its efforts in five areas of climate action, whose elements have consensus support within the MIT community:

• research to further understand climate change and advance solutions to mitigate and adapt to it;
• the acceleration of low-carbon energy technology via eight new research centers;
• the development of enhanced educational programs on climate change;
• new tools to share climate information globally; and
• measures to reduce carbon use on the MIT campus.

The plan calls for MIT to convene academia, industry, and government in pursuit of three overlapping stages of progress.

“The first step,” according to the plan, “is to imagine the future as informed by research: e.g., What is the optimal mix of energy sources in 15, 25 and 35 years, in order to meet emissions targets and eventually reach a zero-carbon global energy system? And how can societies across the globe best adapt to damaging climate impacts in the meantime?”

“Next,” the plan continues, “it will be vital to establish the policy and economic incentives to achieve that future. Finally, clear technological goals and aligned incentives will focus and accelerate the research and development required to achieve success. All three phases need to be continuously refreshed: Research and development should continuously inform timelines and targets. The success of this strategy depends on the best efforts of all three sectors.”

The plan specifically asserts the need for a price on carbon in order to align the incentives of industry with the imperatives of climate science.

The plan also announces that MIT will not divest from the fossil fuel industry. This decision and the overall plan emerged from more than a year of broad consultation with the MIT community, including extensive public discussion led by the Committee on the MIT Climate Change Conversation, and engagement with the student-led group Fossil Free MIT. This group originally petitioned MIT to divest from 200 companies and more recently has asked for “reinvestment in campus sustainability, and a reinvention of the approach that MIT takes toward climate change.”

In his announcement letter today to the MIT community, President L. Rafael Reif said the plan would not have taken the shape it did without Fossil Free MIT’s “willingness to work with us toward the shared goal of meaningful climate action.” He encouraged the group’s members to join in the work ahead.

A call to service, on campus and beyond

In his letter, Reif called upon all members of the MIT community to take action. “There is room and reason for each of us to be part of the solution,” he wrote. “I urge everyone to join us in rising to this historic challenge.”

Alumni are being called upon to imagine how they can help MIT execute the plan. A competition announced in the plan has been created in order to elicit the most effective ways for the MIT alumni community to take personal and combined action.

“MIT’s 130,000 alumni represent an exceptional untapped resource for driving substantive progress on climate change,” the plan says, “and we are certain that our graduates will know better than we do how to make the most of their strength, from their technical expertise to their professional and community networks.”

The competition will be hosted by the MIT Climate CoLab , a digital community that engages nearly 50,000 people from over 170 countries to crowdsource climate priorities and novel solutions. The plan calls for the Climate CoLab to expand its overall capacity, so that MIT can serve as a vital hub of crowdsourced solutions to climate change.

A year and more in the making

The plan is the result of an MIT-wide initiative on climate launched in May 2014, and led by Provost Martin Schmidt; Vice President for Research Maria Zuber; MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) Director Robert Armstrong; and Susan Solomon, founding director of MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative.

In September 2014, the initiative appointed the Committee on the MIT Climate Change Conversation , chaired by Roman Stocker, then associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, to lead public discussion of MIT’s options for addressing climate change.

The plan credits members of the committee, as well as members of Fossil Free MIT, for having “brought climate change to the top of MIT’s institutional agenda by urging that MIT assume a role of public leadership.”

“Today’s plan is truly MIT’s plan,” Zuber says. “There is a hunger across the Institute to apply MIT’s strengths to the problem. With a firm theory of the case for how to bring cohesion to our work in science, engineering, and policy, we are now poised to set forth on five years of critical work. Today is an important beginning.”

In his letter to the MIT community, Reif wrote that MIT will rely on Zuber to lead MIT’s research, outreach, and convening efforts.

“President Reif and Vice President for Research Zuber have led us to a very important day in the Institute’s history,” says Diana Chapman Walsh, a member of the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation (MIT’s board of trustees) and former president of Wellesley College. “The world is calling for leadership at a time of urgency and uncertainty. Today, MIT is deepening its commitment to meaningful action.”

Intensifying MIT’s impact

The plan outlines five areas for “direct action”:

• An improved understanding of climate change, and practical solutions to mitigate and adapt to it. As part of its Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), now led by Professor John E. Fernandez, who was named as ESI’s second director earlier this week, MIT is providing $5 million to back further research on a series of cross-disciplinary projects and will seek outside support for promising new work.
• Accelerating progress on low-carbon technologies. Building on decades of faculty research, the MIT Energy Initiative is planning to launch eight new low-carbon energy centers, in cooperation with corporate partners, each focused on the advancement of a specific type of technology. Each center will seek about $8 million in annual funding, or more than $300 million in total over the five-year period — which the plan says represents “far and away the greatest opportunity for MIT to make a difference on climate change.” The eight centers will be in the areas of solar energy; energy storage; materials; carbon capture, use, and sequestration; nuclear energy; nuclear fusion; energy bioscience; and the electrical grid.
• In addition, MIT plans additional research intended to help transform at least four major types of energy-related systems. These projects will concern the future of the utility industry, ground transportation, air transportation, and cities. And MIT is commissioning a multidisciplinary report to envision the pathway to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon future.
• Education. MIT plans to create an Environment and Sustainability degree option; develop an online Climate Change and Sustainability credential; and, in a joint effort between MIT’s School of Engineering and School of Architecture and Planning, find ways to insert principles of “benign and sustainable design” throughout MIT’s engineering and design instruction.
• Additional knowledge-sharing tools. MIT will expand its range of short courses and seminars for executives (including through online tools); create a new web portal on climate change; expand its Climate CoLab crowdsourcing tool (as noted above); and continue to focus on climate issues through Solve .
• Reducing emissions on the MIT campus, and using the campus as a “test bed” for climate action. MIT plans to reduce campus emission by at least 32 percent by 2030 (the amount set as a goal by the federal government); eliminate the use of fuel oil on campus by 2019; enact “carbon shadow pricing,” to explore the effects of assigning a self-imposed cost to campus carbon emissions; pursue more carbon-efficient technologies as it renews its stock of campus buildings and systems; and build an open data platform on campus energy use.

Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who earned a PhD from MIT in 1949 and served on the economics faculty in the 1950s, has urged the MIT community to take action on climate change and endorses today’s plan, calling it “a terrific document. It is inspirational that MIT is working on the subject with such energy and impact.” Shultz chairs the External Advisory Board of the MIT Energy Initiative.

Robert Armstrong, director of the MIT Energy Initiative, says, “The plan recognizes the central role that climate change will have in driving transformation of the global energy system. The eight low-carbon energy centers leverage MIT’s strengths in working across disciplines and in deeply engaging with industry to tackle society’s greatest challenges.”

Investment questions

The plan announces that in the interest of fighting climate change, MIT will not divest from companies in the fossil fuel sector.

“We believe that divestment — a dramatic public disengagement — is incompatible with the strategy of engagement with industry to solve problems that is at the heart of today’s plan. Combatting climate change will require intense collaboration across the research community, industry and government,” the plan states.

Divestment has been a principal aim of Fossil Free MIT, which had gathered 3,400 signatures from members of the MIT community, asking for divestment from 200 companies in the fossil-fuel industry. MIT hosted a public debate on the issue in April, in which MIT faculty, professors from other institutions, and investment executives addressed the potential merits and drawbacks of divestment.

The plan states that MIT is “not naïve about the pernicious role of some segments of the fossil fuel industry in creating the current policy deadlock. We deplore the practice of ‘disinformation,’ through which some industry players and related groups have actively obstructed clear public understanding of the problem of climate change.”

MIT’s position, the plan states, is that “well-crafted policies can harness the creative forces of industry to serve the common good.” Further, it argues “that growing awareness of climate change may be generating a tipping point in that policy dynamic now. Witness the fact that in Paris last Friday, October 16, the CEOs of ten of the world’s largest oil and gas companies declared that their ‘shared ambition is for a 2°C future,’ and called for ‘an effective climate change agreement’ at next month’s 21st session of the United Nations Conference of Parties to the UN Framework on Climate Change (COP21).”

“Six of those companies — BP, Eni, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Statoil, and Total — are members of MITEI,” the plan continues. “We believe we have greater power to build on such momentum not by distancing ourselves from fossil fuel companies, but by bringing them closer to us.”

Ultimately, the plan states, massive changes are needed in the production, distribution, and consumption of energy to avert a potential climate catastrophe: “To solve this global problem, humanity must reorder the global energy status quo.”

Robert Millard, chairman of the MIT Corporation, calls the plan “bold, respectful, complete, honest, and well-reasoned. It therefore reflects,” he says, “the highest aspirations of MIT.”

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Press mentions, boston globe.

In an article for The Boston Globe , David Abel writes about MIT’s efforts to combat climate change. Abel notes that, “MIT is embarking on an unprecedented program to accelerate progress on low-carbon energy technologies.”

Prof. Maria Zuber, Vice President for Research, speaks with WGBH Morning Edition host Bob Seay about MIT’s plan to confront climate change. Underscoring the need to engage everyone in the solution -- academic research institutions, governments and industry -- Zuber remarked, "MIT, although we're a top institution, we are humble enough to realize that we can't do this alone. Climate change is a complex problem, it's a global problem, and it's going to require all the smart people... to scale up and make this a global solution."

The Conversation

Matthew Nisbet, a professor at Northeastern University who focuses on climate change communication, writes for The Conversation about MIT’s Climate Action Plan. Nisbet writes that MIT’s plan can “serve as a model for how major research universities can accelerate effective societal actions on climate change by collaborating with a diversity of industry members.”

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Planning July 2020

Japa takeaway, 7 principles of strong climate change planning, it’s time to include climate in all our plans..

Motorists drive through a flooded street in Norfolk, Virginia, during a period of high-tide flooding. Climate change is causing these episodes to occur more frequently. Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program.

By Sara Meerow and Sierra C. Woodruff

As greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts increase worldwide, there is an urgent need for communities to simultaneously mitigate and adapt. But are planners doing enough? In a recent Journal of the American Planning Association article, we examine that question and find that, while there has been progress in recent years, it hasn't been enough given the scope of the challenge. We also suggest a path forward to achieve strong climate change planning.

First, some (very condensed) background. The international planning community has not ignored climate change. In fact, discussions of global climate change have appeared in JAPA since 1990. At first, planners focused on mitigation, or reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increasing GHG sinks. The focus then broadened to adaptation planning.

Today, climate change planning is increasingly embedded within a broader resilience agenda. Whereas climate action plans (CAPs) focus on mitigating GHGs and adaptation plans on preparing for the impacts of climate change, resilience plans seek to enhance communities' abilities to cope with a variety of shocks and stresses, from earthquakes to extreme weather to racial inequity. We look at all three in our research — mitigation, adaptation, and resilience — and offer seven principles to improve planning.

1. Set ambitious yet achievable goals.

Plans should have a clear purpose, vision for the future, well-defined outcomes, and measurable objectives. While CAP GHG reduction targets are often insufficiently ambitious, these mitigation plans at least have a measurable goal. In comparison, goals and outcomes for adaptation planning can be difficult to define.

Resilience plans tend to better establish goals and objectives than CAPs and also recognize the connections between climate change and other challenges. As an example, Boston's resilience plan recognizes the need to address systemic racism to improve disaster outcomes and economic growth.

2. Provide a strong fact base using the best available data.

To combat climate change, cities need data on current conditions, future projections, and modeled impacts. For mitigation planning, this entails a detailed GHG inventory; for adaptation planning, the fact base usually consists of vulnerability assessments. Plans should explain how data was collected or analyzed, as well as break down emissions and vulnerability by sector and population. Those assessments should identify projected climate change impacts on the water system, natural systems, built environment, economy, public health, cultural assets, and public services. Resilience plans generally appear weaker in terms of their fact base than CAPs, although they better acknowledge underlying drivers of human vulnerability.

3. Outline diverse strategies to achieve goals.

Given the need to mitigate and adapt, strong climate change planning requires diverse strategies. These should include efforts to change planning processes, policies and design standards, land use, physical infrastructure, green infrastructure, individual behavior, education, capacity building, technology, and research.

It is critical to rank identified strategies and attempt to calculate the costs of both implementation and inaction. Identifying co-benefits associated with actions — including adaptation and mitigation win-wins — is also important for broadening support. Green infrastructure is an increasingly popular strategy, in part because of its numerous co-benefits.

4. Engage the public and foster justice.

Planners agree on the importance of broad participation. This principle applies to climate change planning, yet there is room to improve procedural equity, or fair participation, in decision making. Research finds that resilience plans outlined public engagement processes better than CAPs but rarely described steps to include marginalized communities.

Addressing climate change requires grappling with the inescapable planning challenge: negotiating conflicting priorities.

Stronger climate change planning should recognize and seek to address injustices and employ different participatory approaches to ensure all local populations are involved. These engagement processes and their outcomes should be outlined in the plans themselves.

5. Coordinate efforts across actors, sectors, and plans.

Addressing climate change requires grappling with the inescapable planning challenge: negotiating conflicting priorities. If anything, climate change is complicating the conflicts between economy, environment, and equity that Scott Campbell sketched out two decades ago. (For example, cities may want to avoid new construction in flood-prone areas, but they face housing affordability and development pressures). Cities have limited resources and therefore need to coordinate efforts. Planners can use the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard , developed by Phil Berke and colleagues to identify inconsistencies across a city's network of plans that stem from conflicting priorities and that may increase vulnerability.

One way to reduce inconsistencies is to integrate climate change into other planning efforts and seek win-win strategies. Yet incorporating future climate projections or risks into hazard mitigation, for example, is still relatively uncommon. This represents a missed opportunity because integrating adaptation into other planning efforts — or mainstreaming — can help highlight the consequences of climate change for different sectors.

Whether climate change is addressed in stand-alone plans or mainstreamed, it requires collaboration. Strong climate change planning needs broad internal support within the city organization and diverse representatives from local universities, different levels of government, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and neighboring jurisdictions. Yet a 2015 study of 350 cities worldwide suggests many relevant municipal agencies are only marginally involved in climate change planning. The growing focus on resilience may be helpful in this regard because resilience planning supposedly breaks down siloes.

6. Include a clear process for implementation and monitoring.

A major implementation gap remains in climate change planning. Many climate mitigation and adaptation plans exist, but research suggests few are put into practice and monitored, or even outline clear steps for doing so. One study in the UK finds that although more than 80 percent of local governments had conducted climate risk assessments by 2010, fewer than 40 percent had a plan to address them, none of which had been implemented.

To facilitate implementation, plans need a clear timeline, funding source, and responsible organization for each strategy. Research suggests that mainstreaming climate change into other sectors or plans increases adoption. Even if a stand-alone climate change plan is being developed, it should be linked to other planning efforts.

Funding is a persistent challenge. Cities like San Francisco are creatively applying existing financing instruments to fund adaptation projects. It is proposing a general obligation bond and a special tax on waterfront property to fortify the three-mile seawall that protects its iconic waterfront. Cities may also consider resilience or insurance-based fees, which create revenue and signal for developers to avoid high-risk areas or reduce risk.

It is critical to monitor plans' implementation and evaluate outcomes. Plans should outline the method of evaluation, responsible parties, and requirements for reporting and updating. This is relatively straightforward with mitigation, which focuses on reducing GHG emissions. Indicators and metrics for evaluating adaptation are more contested.

It is important to monitor who is being affected by climate change planning. Most climate justice discussions focus on the fact that the populations and countries most affected are not the primary producers of GHGs. Recent studies point to justice issues inherent to local climate change planning. For example, city size and wealth are predictors of whether citites will plan for climate change. Within cities, vulnerable communities, including children and the elderly, will be disproportionately impacted. Marginalized groups tend to live in more vulnerable areas and have less resilient housing, fewer resources to deal with disasters, and limited options for evacuation or relocation.

These inequalities may be exacerbated by adaptation investments. Researchers have grouped the way adaptation exacerbates inequality into acts of commission, whereby efforts displace poor communities, and acts of omission, instances where investments prioritize wealthier communities. Adaption investments may also lead to climate gentrification, where perceived climate vulnerability makes safer parts of a community more attractive, driving up real estate prices and displacing or excluding low-income populations. Evidence from Miami suggests this may already be happening, with higher-elevation properties appreciating more. This highlights the need to examine the consequences of adaptation strategies for disadvantaged populations and couple adaptation strategies with protective housing policies.

7. Address climate change uncertainty.

Numerous uncertainties, from scientists' imperfect understanding of climate processes to unknown future GHG emissions and political responses, make climate change planning difficult. Luckily, planners are equipped to address uncertainty.

Plans should identify sources of uncertainties and consider different scenarios reflecting the range of possibilities. One promising strategy is adaptive management, a flexible, iterative governance approach whereby adjustments are regularly made based on new information learned through system monitoring. Another is to prioritize no- or low-regret strategies that would be beneficial regardless of future climate impacts. When evaluating different scenarios, it is useful to prioritize robust strategies that are effective across a range of possible climate futures. At a minimum, plans should acknowledge the need for strategies that account for uncertainty.

Promising signs

Although communities and planners are still not doing enough to plan for climate change, there is some cause for optimism.

First, public concern about climate change is growing. Second, communities worldwide are increasingly developing climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience plans and exploring novel approaches. Third, planners have access to a wealth of resources for climate change planning, including those from APA, the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, and EcoAdapt.

Planners' abilities to think long term, handle uncertainty, integrate across systems, and bring together diverse actors align well with skillsets required for climate action. Indeed, adaptation plans prepared by planners demonstrate stronger goals, strategies, implementation and monitoring, and coordination. As planners work toward better climate change planning, focusing on the seven principles outlined here is a good way to start.

Read the original article for free for a limited time. APA members can subscribe to print and digital JAPA for $48 a year.

Sara Meerow is an assistant professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. Sierra C. Woodruff is an assistant professor of urban planning at Texas A&M University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation. It appeared in Volume 86, Issue 1, of the Journal of the American Planning Association.

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Scientists detail research to assess viability and risks of marine cloud brightening

• March 20, 2024

As the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to increase and climate change impacts become more costly, the scientific community is redoubling efforts to investigate the potential risks and benefits of artificially shading Earth’s surface to slow global warming. Marine cloud brightening (MCB) is one of two primary solar radiation modification methods being proposed to offset the worst effects of global warming while decarbonization advances. MCB proposals involve the injection of salt spray into shallow marine clouds to brighten them, increasing their reflection of sunlight and reducing the amount of heat absorbed by the water below.

A group of 31 leading atmospheric scientists have now offered a consensus physical science research roadmap to build the knowledge base needed to evaluate the viability of MCB approaches. Their roadmap is described in a new paper published in the journal Science Advances .

“Interest in MCB is growing, but policymakers currently don’t have the information they need to reach decisions about if and when MCB should be deployed,” said lead author Graham Feingold, a researcher with NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory. “The question is whether we can design a MCB research program using our current modeling and observational tools to establish the feasibility of this approach on a global scale, and if not, what needs to be done to position ourselves to do so.” 

Artificially shading the planet would do nothing to reduce the driver of climate change, human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, said co-author Lynn Russell, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. “The recent acceleration of impacts from global warming means that we need to consider non-ideal backup plans just to buy us enough time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and existing burdens,” Russell said. “A research plan is essential before we can consider adopting MCB, and we need to simultaneously address the physical science questions and the human dimensions.”

Current MCB proposals rely on saltwater spray, which would mimic plumes of sulfur-rich emissions from ship stacks or volcanoes, to increase the aerosol concentration in the lower marine atmosphere. Ideally, droplets in the saltwater spray evaporate to produce fine particles that are carried up to the cloud layer by turbulent and convective air motions. If MCB techniques could consistently influence clouds to reflect more sunlight back to space than similar clouds with a lower droplet concentration, then it has the potential to be an effective solar radiation modification technique, at least at the local scale, scientists say. This in turn could produce some cooling at a local scale.

The study proposes a substantial and targeted program of MCB research that includes laboratory studies, field experiments, and cloud modeling. As a result, new laboratory facilities are needed to address gaps in understanding aerosol and cloud microphysical processes, as few existing labs are capable of addressing these processes.

Long-running field experiments using a point source at an ocean-based location where the conditions are favorable, along with new observations and new modeling are needed to test salt-particle spraying technology. This would allow scientists to determine the degree to which sea spray emitted near the surface would reach the cloud base in a variety of conditions.

Researchers can take advantage of existing analogs to cloud-seeding experiments, such as natural volcanic emissions, biomass burning, exhaust plumes from  individual ships or designated shipping lanes, urban point sources, and urban plumes. 

In practical terms, researchers need to develop sufficient confidence that appropriately sized particles can be generated and delivered to the clouds, and once there, act to form cloud droplets that efficiently scatter sunlight. They would need to show that clouds could be brightened consistently and over a large enough area to meaningfully cool the ocean below – and that trying to manipulate clouds would not cause clouds to thin, or droplets to rain out, which might allow for increased heating. Scientists would further need to show that the brightening of the clouds would be measurable to demonstrate it would work as intended at globally relevant scales, or in sensitive regional ecosystems, such as coral reefs. 

Clouds are not all created equally—some are more susceptible to aerosol injections than others. A cloud that is already bright, with a high drop concentration, is much more difficult to brighten than a wispy cloud with a low drop concentration. How a cloud responds to attempted manipulation is subtly dependent on the weather and background aerosol conditions. Complicating matters, the optimal particle size and amount is likely dependent on cloud properties that can change as they drift through the air. This explains the high variability in ship-track occurrence, Feingold said. 

“We would have to get the right-sized particles into receptive clouds at the right times of day and seasons, and over large-enough areas to shade large areas of ocean,” said Feingold. “It’s a major challenge.”

“To the extent that we can identify optimal brightening conditions, a targeted approach to MCB, rather than routine spraying under all conditions, might have a higher probability of success,” Feingold said. “It might also reduce the risk of regional circulation responses that change temperature and rainfall in ways that benefit some and leave others vulnerable.”

More generally, Feingold cautioned that MCB would not replace decarbonization and would not alleviate ocean acidification. “To reduce global temperatures, our highest priority should be to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. MCB might help to alleviate the worst impacts of climate change.”

For more information, contact Theo Stein, NOAA Communications: [email protected] .

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What do scientists think about different climate policy? And why should we care?

Scientists at least partly shape public opinion about climate policy. Image:  Unsplash/Mika Baumeister

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Stay up to date:, climate and nature.

• The debate around the most appropriate climate-policy instruments to reduce emissions is buoyant.
• Studies have discerned public opinion about various climate policy instruments but there is little systematic evidence on what scientists across disciplines see as most adequate and viable.
• Ivan Savin and co-authors conducted a global expert survey, demonstrating consensus on and controversy on different instruments and a need for more communication about climate policy.

Understanding scientists’ opinions about climate policy is important for at least two reasons.

Firstly, scientists advise policymakers through expert commissions such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . Secondly, scientists from different fields partly shape public opinion about climate policy. In fact, a recent study shows that citizens in the United States and Germany expect scientists to be outspoken on climate policies and communicate their findings to policymakers and journalists.

To advance the debate on climate policy, Stefan Drews and Jeroen van der Bergh and I conducted a global survey of almost 800 scientists who recently published on climate policy in peer-reviewed journals. The aim was to elicit their views on climate policy criteria and instruments.

Researchers in our sample work in more than 70 developed and developing countries and a broad set of disciplines, including formal, social and natural sciences. We asked a large set of questions related to six types of climate policy instruments: direct regulation, e.g. quotas, standards, carbon taxation, cap-and-trade, e.g. the European Union’s emissions trading system, adoption subsidies; innovation support – such as research and development subsidies and information provision (ranging from education to eco-labels).

This survey produced a lot of results that have been recently published in Ecological Economics and Environmental Research Letters . Here, I want to highlight a few that I find most remarkable.

Have you read?

India is making strides on climate policy that others could follow , this is the tool that will help policymakers tackle the climate crisis.

Consensus on some instruments, controversy on others

On average, all six instruments were rated by researchers as important (“value 3” on our Likert scale); however, the degree of consensus among disciplines on how important these instruments are in a policy mix varied widely, as per the figure below. In particular, direct regulation enjoys the greatest consensus, with only environmental and other economists being relatively more sceptical. These researchers predictably rated cap-and-trade and carbon tax high but researchers from other fields, notably political science and ecological economics, mostly disagreed.

To better elicit similarities and differences among disciplines on how important they consider the instruments, we clustered the 15 fields in our sample into five distinct groups. The result is demonstrated in the figure below, with the distance on the horizontal axis indicating the difference between fields in their views. As one can see, ecological economists and mathematicians or computer scientists are the most dissimilar groups from other discipline clusters. The remaining three groups are sociologists and psychologists; environmental and other economists plus law researchers; and a heterogeneous group consisting of various social and natural scientists.

Zooming in on the role of carbon pricing

Since carbon pricing instruments – carbon tax and cap-and-trade – have received contradictory appraisals on their capability to reduce carbon emissions in the recent literature, we examined researchers’ agreement with 10 statements about their functioning. The responses are displayed below. Among statements with the largest agreement are that consumers are more influenced by prices than environmental concerns – 80%, while there is more of a mixed response to whether carbon pricing can achieve zero carbon emissions.

We then statistically linked the importance of instruments in a climate policy mix with answers to these 10 statements. We found that two statements are positively and significantly associated with giving importance to both types of carbon pricing:

• Rebound: agreement with carbon pricing effectively limiting energy/carbon rebound.
• Policy harmonization: the belief in the potential of global upscaling of carbon pricing.

According to our results, one way to increase support for carbon pricing is to communicate the policy instrument’s advantages effectively.

Perceived strengths, weaknesses and knowledge gaps

Finally, we asked our expert scientists to indicate what they felt were the main strengths, weaknesses and knowledge gaps of carbon pricing compared with other policy instruments. Among the main strengths, the interviewed researchers named a clear price signal to both the producer and consumer, the financial sources the instrument provides to subsidize transformations towards zero-carbon economies and its flexibility in implementation. The perceived strengths of carbon pricing summarized above align with what economists have advocated for decades.

What appears less trivial is the perceived weaknesses of the instrument. In particular, researchers find it can increase inequalities by placing an unfair burden on the lower-income population, resulting in low political and public feasibility. Furthermore, the instrument appears to researchers as being vulnerable to manipulation and fraud.

As for perceived knowledge gaps, researchers cited policy synergy with other instruments, global implementation of carbon pricing and better empirically grounded models.

What’s striking is that some of the assessed perceptions and opinions are not in line with insights from the theoretical and empirical literature on carbon pricing. In a nutshell, there must be more communication about climate policy, particularly carbon pricing, between academic experts from distinct disciplines to ascertain the better climate policy instruments at play.

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A review of the global climate change impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures

Kashif abbass.

1 School of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094 People’s Republic of China

Muhammad Zeeshan Qasim

2 Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Xiaolingwei 200, Nanjing, 210094 People’s Republic of China

Huaming Song

Muntasir murshed.

3 School of Business and Economics, North South University, Dhaka, 1229 Bangladesh

4 Department of Journalism, Media and Communications, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Haider Mahmood

5 Department of Finance, College of Business Administration, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, 173, Alkharj, 11942 Saudi Arabia

Ijaz Younis

Associated data.

Data sources and relevant links are provided in the paper to access data.

Climate change is a long-lasting change in the weather arrays across tropics to polls. It is a global threat that has embarked on to put stress on various sectors. This study is aimed to conceptually engineer how climate variability is deteriorating the sustainability of diverse sectors worldwide. Specifically, the agricultural sector’s vulnerability is a globally concerning scenario, as sufficient production and food supplies are threatened due to irreversible weather fluctuations. In turn, it is challenging the global feeding patterns, particularly in countries with agriculture as an integral part of their economy and total productivity. Climate change has also put the integrity and survival of many species at stake due to shifts in optimum temperature ranges, thereby accelerating biodiversity loss by progressively changing the ecosystem structures. Climate variations increase the likelihood of particular food and waterborne and vector-borne diseases, and a recent example is a coronavirus pandemic. Climate change also accelerates the enigma of antimicrobial resistance, another threat to human health due to the increasing incidence of resistant pathogenic infections. Besides, the global tourism industry is devastated as climate change impacts unfavorable tourism spots. The methodology investigates hypothetical scenarios of climate variability and attempts to describe the quality of evidence to facilitate readers’ careful, critical engagement. Secondary data is used to identify sustainability issues such as environmental, social, and economic viability. To better understand the problem, gathered the information in this report from various media outlets, research agencies, policy papers, newspapers, and other sources. This review is a sectorial assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation approaches worldwide in the aforementioned sectors and the associated economic costs. According to the findings, government involvement is necessary for the country’s long-term development through strict accountability of resources and regulations implemented in the past to generate cutting-edge climate policy. Therefore, mitigating the impacts of climate change must be of the utmost importance, and hence, this global threat requires global commitment to address its dreadful implications to ensure global sustenance.

Introduction

Worldwide observed and anticipated climatic changes for the twenty-first century and global warming are significant global changes that have been encountered during the past 65 years. Climate change (CC) is an inter-governmental complex challenge globally with its influence over various components of the ecological, environmental, socio-political, and socio-economic disciplines (Adger et al.  2005 ; Leal Filho et al.  2021 ; Feliciano et al.  2022 ). Climate change involves heightened temperatures across numerous worlds (Battisti and Naylor  2009 ; Schuurmans  2021 ; Weisheimer and Palmer  2005 ; Yadav et al.  2015 ). With the onset of the industrial revolution, the problem of earth climate was amplified manifold (Leppänen et al.  2014 ). It is reported that the immediate attention and due steps might increase the probability of overcoming its devastating impacts. It is not plausible to interpret the exact consequences of climate change (CC) on a sectoral basis (Izaguirre et al.  2021 ; Jurgilevich et al.  2017 ), which is evident by the emerging level of recognition plus the inclusion of climatic uncertainties at both local and national level of policymaking (Ayers et al.  2014 ).

Climate change is characterized based on the comprehensive long-haul temperature and precipitation trends and other components such as pressure and humidity level in the surrounding environment. Besides, the irregular weather patterns, retreating of global ice sheets, and the corresponding elevated sea level rise are among the most renowned international and domestic effects of climate change (Lipczynska-Kochany  2018 ; Michel et al.  2021 ; Murshed and Dao 2020 ). Before the industrial revolution, natural sources, including volcanoes, forest fires, and seismic activities, were regarded as the distinct sources of greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O, and H 2 O into the atmosphere (Murshed et al. 2020 ; Hussain et al.  2020 ; Sovacool et al.  2021 ; Usman and Balsalobre-Lorente 2022 ; Murshed 2022 ). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) struck a major agreement to tackle climate change and accelerate and intensify the actions and investments required for a sustainable low-carbon future at Conference of the Parties (COP-21) in Paris on December 12, 2015. The Paris Agreement expands on the Convention by bringing all nations together for the first time in a single cause to undertake ambitious measures to prevent climate change and adapt to its impacts, with increased funding to assist developing countries in doing so. As so, it marks a turning point in the global climate fight. The core goal of the Paris Agreement is to improve the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century well below 2 °C over pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5° C (Sharma et al. 2020 ; Sharif et al. 2020 ; Chien et al. 2021 .

Furthermore, the agreement aspires to strengthen nations’ ability to deal with the effects of climate change and align financing flows with low GHG emissions and climate-resilient paths (Shahbaz et al. 2019 ; Anwar et al. 2021 ; Usman et al. 2022a ). To achieve these lofty goals, adequate financial resources must be mobilized and provided, as well as a new technology framework and expanded capacity building, allowing developing countries and the most vulnerable countries to act under their respective national objectives. The agreement also establishes a more transparent action and support mechanism. All Parties are required by the Paris Agreement to do their best through “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the coming years (Balsalobre-Lorente et al. 2020 ). It includes obligations that all Parties regularly report on their emissions and implementation activities. A global stock-take will be conducted every five years to review collective progress toward the agreement’s goal and inform the Parties’ future individual actions. The Paris Agreement became available for signature on April 22, 2016, Earth Day, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. On November 4, 2016, it went into effect 30 days after the so-called double threshold was met (ratification by 55 nations accounting for at least 55% of world emissions). More countries have ratified and continue to ratify the agreement since then, bringing 125 Parties in early 2017. To fully operationalize the Paris Agreement, a work program was initiated in Paris to define mechanisms, processes, and recommendations on a wide range of concerns (Murshed et al. 2021 ). Since 2016, Parties have collaborated in subsidiary bodies (APA, SBSTA, and SBI) and numerous formed entities. The Conference of the Parties functioning as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) convened for the first time in November 2016 in Marrakesh in conjunction with COP22 and made its first two resolutions. The work plan is scheduled to be finished by 2018. Some mitigation and adaptation strategies to reduce the emission in the prospective of Paris agreement are following firstly, a long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, secondly, to aim to limit the rise to 1.5 °C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change, thirdly, on the need for global emissions to peak as soon as possible, recognizing that this will take longer for developing countries, lastly, to undertake rapid reductions after that under the best available science, to achieve a balance between emissions and removals in the second half of the century. On the other side, some adaptation strategies are; strengthening societies’ ability to deal with the effects of climate change and to continue & expand international assistance for developing nations’ adaptation.

However, anthropogenic activities are currently regarded as most accountable for CC (Murshed et al. 2022 ). Apart from the industrial revolution, other anthropogenic activities include excessive agricultural operations, which further involve the high use of fuel-based mechanization, burning of agricultural residues, burning fossil fuels, deforestation, national and domestic transportation sectors, etc. (Huang et al.  2016 ). Consequently, these anthropogenic activities lead to climatic catastrophes, damaging local and global infrastructure, human health, and total productivity. Energy consumption has mounted GHGs levels concerning warming temperatures as most of the energy production in developing countries comes from fossil fuels (Balsalobre-Lorente et al. 2022 ; Usman et al. 2022b ; Abbass et al. 2021a ; Ishikawa-Ishiwata and Furuya  2022 ).

This review aims to highlight the effects of climate change in a socio-scientific aspect by analyzing the existing literature on various sectorial pieces of evidence globally that influence the environment. Although this review provides a thorough examination of climate change and its severe affected sectors that pose a grave danger for global agriculture, biodiversity, health, economy, forestry, and tourism, and to purpose some practical prophylactic measures and mitigation strategies to be adapted as sound substitutes to survive from climate change (CC) impacts. The societal implications of irregular weather patterns and other effects of climate changes are discussed in detail. Some numerous sustainable mitigation measures and adaptation practices and techniques at the global level are discussed in this review with an in-depth focus on its economic, social, and environmental aspects. Methods of data collection section are included in the supplementary information.

Review methodology

Related study and its objectives.

Today, we live an ordinary life in the beautiful digital, globalized world where climate change has a decisive role. What happens in one country has a massive influence on geographically far apart countries, which points to the current crisis known as COVID-19 (Sarkar et al.  2021 ). The most dangerous disease like COVID-19 has affected the world’s climate changes and economic conditions (Abbass et al. 2022 ; Pirasteh-Anosheh et al.  2021 ). The purpose of the present study is to review the status of research on the subject, which is based on “Global Climate Change Impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures” by systematically reviewing past published and unpublished research work. Furthermore, the current study seeks to comment on research on the same topic and suggest future research on the same topic. Specifically, the present study aims: The first one is, organize publications to make them easy and quick to find. Secondly, to explore issues in this area, propose an outline of research for future work. The third aim of the study is to synthesize the previous literature on climate change, various sectors, and their mitigation measurement. Lastly , classify the articles according to the different methods and procedures that have been adopted.

Review methodology for reviewers

This review-based article followed systematic literature review techniques that have proved the literature review as a rigorous framework (Benita  2021 ; Tranfield et al.  2003 ). Moreover, we illustrate in Fig.  1 the search method that we have started for this research. First, finalized the research theme to search literature (Cooper et al.  2018 ). Second, used numerous research databases to search related articles and download from the database (Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus Index Journals, Emerald, Elsevier Science Direct, Springer, and Sciverse). We focused on various articles, with research articles, feedback pieces, short notes, debates, and review articles published in scholarly journals. Reports used to search for multiple keywords such as “Climate Change,” “Mitigation and Adaptation,” “Department of Agriculture and Human Health,” “Department of Biodiversity and Forestry,” etc.; in summary, keyword list and full text have been made. Initially, the search for keywords yielded a large amount of literature.

Methodology search for finalized articles for investigations.

Source : constructed by authors

Since 2020, it has been impossible to review all the articles found; some restrictions have been set for the literature exhibition. The study searched 95 articles on a different database mentioned above based on the nature of the study. It excluded 40 irrelevant papers due to copied from a previous search after readings tiles, abstract and full pieces. The criteria for inclusion were: (i) articles focused on “Global Climate Change Impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures,” and (ii) the search key terms related to study requirements. The complete procedure yielded 55 articles for our study. We repeat our search on the “Web of Science and Google Scholars” database to enhance the search results and check the referenced articles.

In this study, 55 articles are reviewed systematically and analyzed for research topics and other aspects, such as the methods, contexts, and theories used in these studies. Furthermore, this study analyzes closely related areas to provide unique research opportunities in the future. The study also discussed future direction opportunities and research questions by understanding the research findings climate changes and other affected sectors. The reviewed paper framework analysis process is outlined in Fig.  2 .

Framework of the analysis Process.

Natural disasters and climate change’s socio-economic consequences

Natural and environmental disasters can be highly variable from year to year; some years pass with very few deaths before a significant disaster event claims many lives (Symanski et al.  2021 ). Approximately 60,000 people globally died from natural disasters each year on average over the past decade (Ritchie and Roser  2014 ; Wiranata and Simbolon  2021 ). So, according to the report, around 0.1% of global deaths. Annual variability in the number and share of deaths from natural disasters in recent decades are shown in Fig.  3 . The number of fatalities can be meager—sometimes less than 10,000, and as few as 0.01% of all deaths. But shock events have a devastating impact: the 1983–1985 famine and drought in Ethiopia; the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami; Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar in 2008; and the 2010 Port-au-Prince earthquake in Haiti and now recent example is COVID-19 pandemic (Erman et al.  2021 ). These events pushed global disaster deaths to over 200,000—more than 0.4% of deaths in these years. Low-frequency, high-impact events such as earthquakes and tsunamis are not preventable, but such high losses of human life are. Historical evidence shows that earlier disaster detection, more robust infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and response programmers have substantially reduced disaster deaths worldwide. Low-income is also the most vulnerable to disasters; improving living conditions, facilities, and response services in these areas would be critical in reducing natural disaster deaths in the coming decades.

Global deaths from natural disasters, 1978 to 2020.

Source EMDAT ( 2020 )

The interior regions of the continent are likely to be impacted by rising temperatures (Dimri et al.  2018 ; Goes et al.  2020 ; Mannig et al.  2018 ; Schuurmans  2021 ). Weather patterns change due to the shortage of natural resources (water), increase in glacier melting, and rising mercury are likely to cause extinction to many planted species (Gampe et al.  2016 ; Mihiretu et al.  2021 ; Shaffril et al.  2018 ).On the other hand, the coastal ecosystem is on the verge of devastation (Perera et al.  2018 ; Phillips  2018 ). The temperature rises, insect disease outbreaks, health-related problems, and seasonal and lifestyle changes are persistent, with a strong probability of these patterns continuing in the future (Abbass et al. 2021c ; Hussain et al.  2018 ). At the global level, a shortage of good infrastructure and insufficient adaptive capacity are hammering the most (IPCC  2013 ). In addition to the above concerns, a lack of environmental education and knowledge, outdated consumer behavior, a scarcity of incentives, a lack of legislation, and the government’s lack of commitment to climate change contribute to the general public’s concerns. By 2050, a 2 to 3% rise in mercury and a drastic shift in rainfall patterns may have serious consequences (Huang et al. 2022 ; Gorst et al.  2018 ). Natural and environmental calamities caused huge losses globally, such as decreased agriculture outputs, rehabilitation of the system, and rebuilding necessary technologies (Ali and Erenstein  2017 ; Ramankutty et al.  2018 ; Yu et al.  2021 ) (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). Furthermore, in the last 3 or 4 years, the world has been plagued by smog-related eye and skin diseases, as well as a rise in road accidents due to poor visibility.

Main natural danger statistics for 1985–2020 at the global level

Source: EM-DAT ( 2020 )

Climate change and agriculture

Global agriculture is the ultimate sector responsible for 30–40% of all greenhouse emissions, which makes it a leading industry predominantly contributing to climate warming and significantly impacted by it (Grieg; Mishra et al.  2021 ; Ortiz et al.  2021 ; Thornton and Lipper  2014 ). Numerous agro-environmental and climatic factors that have a dominant influence on agriculture productivity (Pautasso et al.  2012 ) are significantly impacted in response to precipitation extremes including floods, forest fires, and droughts (Huang  2004 ). Besides, the immense dependency on exhaustible resources also fuels the fire and leads global agriculture to become prone to devastation. Godfray et al. ( 2010 ) mentioned that decline in agriculture challenges the farmer’s quality of life and thus a significant factor to poverty as the food and water supplies are critically impacted by CC (Ortiz et al.  2021 ; Rosenzweig et al.  2014 ). As an essential part of the economic systems, especially in developing countries, agricultural systems affect the overall economy and potentially the well-being of households (Schlenker and Roberts  2009 ). According to the report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, i.e., CH 4, CO 2 , and N 2 O, are increased in the air to extraordinary levels over the last few centuries (Usman and Makhdum 2021 ; Stocker et al.  2013 ). Climate change is the composite outcome of two different factors. The first is the natural causes, and the second is the anthropogenic actions (Karami 2012 ). It is also forecasted that the world may experience a typical rise in temperature stretching from 1 to 3.7 °C at the end of this century (Pachauri et al. 2014 ). The world’s crop production is also highly vulnerable to these global temperature-changing trends as raised temperatures will pose severe negative impacts on crop growth (Reidsma et al. 2009 ). Some of the recent modeling about the fate of global agriculture is briefly described below.

Decline in cereal productivity

Crop productivity will also be affected dramatically in the next few decades due to variations in integral abiotic factors such as temperature, solar radiation, precipitation, and CO 2 . These all factors are included in various regulatory instruments like progress and growth, weather-tempted changes, pest invasions (Cammell and Knight 1992 ), accompanying disease snags (Fand et al. 2012 ), water supplies (Panda et al. 2003 ), high prices of agro-products in world’s agriculture industry, and preeminent quantity of fertilizer consumption. Lobell and field ( 2007 ) claimed that from 1962 to 2002, wheat crop output had condensed significantly due to rising temperatures. Therefore, during 1980–2011, the common wheat productivity trends endorsed extreme temperature events confirmed by Gourdji et al. ( 2013 ) around South Asia, South America, and Central Asia. Various other studies (Asseng, Cao, Zhang, and Ludwig 2009 ; Asseng et al. 2013 ; García et al. 2015 ; Ortiz et al. 2021 ) also proved that wheat output is negatively affected by the rising temperatures and also caused adverse effects on biomass productivity (Calderini et al. 1999 ; Sadras and Slafer 2012 ). Hereafter, the rice crop is also influenced by the high temperatures at night. These difficulties will worsen because the temperature will be rising further in the future owing to CC (Tebaldi et al. 2006 ). Another research conducted in China revealed that a 4.6% of rice production per 1 °C has happened connected with the advancement in night temperatures (Tao et al. 2006 ). Moreover, the average night temperature growth also affected rice indicia cultivar’s output pragmatically during 25 years in the Philippines (Peng et al. 2004 ). It is anticipated that the increase in world average temperature will also cause a substantial reduction in yield (Hatfield et al. 2011 ; Lobell and Gourdji 2012 ). In the southern hemisphere, Parry et al. ( 2007 ) noted a rise of 1–4 °C in average daily temperatures at the end of spring season unti the middle of summers, and this raised temperature reduced crop output by cutting down the time length for phenophases eventually reduce the yield (Hatfield and Prueger 2015 ; R. Ortiz 2008 ). Also, world climate models have recommended that humid and subtropical regions expect to be plentiful prey to the upcoming heat strokes (Battisti and Naylor 2009 ). Grain production is the amalgamation of two constituents: the average weight and the grain output/m 2 , however, in crop production. Crop output is mainly accredited to the grain quantity (Araus et al. 2008 ; Gambín and Borrás 2010 ). In the times of grain set, yield resources are mainly strewn between hitherto defined components, i.e., grain usual weight and grain output, which presents a trade-off between them (Gambín and Borrás 2010 ) beside disparities in per grain integration (B. L. Gambín et al. 2006 ). In addition to this, the maize crop is also susceptible to raised temperatures, principally in the flowering stage (Edreira and Otegui 2013 ). In reality, the lower grain number is associated with insufficient acclimatization due to intense photosynthesis and higher respiration and the high-temperature effect on the reproduction phenomena (Edreira and Otegui 2013 ). During the flowering phase, maize visible to heat (30–36 °C) seemed less anthesis-silking intermissions (Edreira et al. 2011 ). Another research by Dupuis and Dumas ( 1990 ) proved that a drop in spikelet when directly visible to high temperatures above 35 °C in vitro pollination. Abnormalities in kernel number claimed by Vega et al. ( 2001 ) is related to conceded plant development during a flowering phase that is linked with the active ear growth phase and categorized as a critical phase for approximation of kernel number during silking (Otegui and Bonhomme 1998 ).

The retort of rice output to high temperature presents disparities in flowering patterns, and seed set lessens and lessens grain weight (Qasim et al. 2020 ; Qasim, Hammad, Maqsood, Tariq, & Chawla). During the daytime, heat directly impacts flowers which lessens the thesis period and quickens the earlier peak flowering (Tao et al. 2006 ). Antagonistic effect of higher daytime temperature d on pollen sprouting proposed seed set decay, whereas, seed set was lengthily reduced than could be explicated by pollen growing at high temperatures 40◦C (Matsui et al. 2001 ).

The decline in wheat output is linked with higher temperatures, confirmed in numerous studies (Semenov 2009 ; Stone and Nicolas 1994 ). High temperatures fast-track the arrangements of plant expansion (Blum et al. 2001 ), diminution photosynthetic process (Salvucci and Crafts‐Brandner 2004 ), and also considerably affect the reproductive operations (Farooq et al. 2011 ).

The destructive impacts of CC induced weather extremes to deteriorate the integrity of crops (Chaudhary et al. 2011 ), e.g., Spartan cold and extreme fog cause falling and discoloration of betel leaves (Rosenzweig et al. 2001 ), giving them a somehow reddish appearance, squeezing of lemon leaves (Pautasso et al. 2012 ), as well as root rot of pineapple, have reported (Vedwan and Rhoades 2001 ). Henceforth, in tackling the disruptive effects of CC, several short-term and long-term management approaches are the crucial need of time (Fig.  4 ). Moreover, various studies (Chaudhary et al. 2011 ; Patz et al. 2005 ; Pautasso et al. 2012 ) have demonstrated adapting trends such as ameliorating crop diversity can yield better adaptability towards CC.

Schematic description of potential impacts of climate change on the agriculture sector and the appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures to overcome its impact.

Climate change impacts on biodiversity

Global biodiversity is among the severe victims of CC because it is the fastest emerging cause of species loss. Studies demonstrated that the massive scale species dynamics are considerably associated with diverse climatic events (Abraham and Chain 1988 ; Manes et al. 2021 ; A. M. D. Ortiz et al. 2021 ). Both the pace and magnitude of CC are altering the compatible habitat ranges for living entities of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial regions. Alterations in general climate regimes influence the integrity of ecosystems in numerous ways, such as variation in the relative abundance of species, range shifts, changes in activity timing, and microhabitat use (Bates et al. 2014 ). The geographic distribution of any species often depends upon its ability to tolerate environmental stresses, biological interactions, and dispersal constraints. Hence, instead of the CC, the local species must only accept, adapt, move, or face extinction (Berg et al. 2010 ). So, the best performer species have a better survival capacity for adjusting to new ecosystems or a decreased perseverance to survive where they are already situated (Bates et al. 2014 ). An important aspect here is the inadequate habitat connectivity and access to microclimates, also crucial in raising the exposure to climate warming and extreme heatwave episodes. For example, the carbon sequestration rates are undergoing fluctuations due to climate-driven expansion in the range of global mangroves (Cavanaugh et al. 2014 ).

Similarly, the loss of kelp-forest ecosystems in various regions and its occupancy by the seaweed turfs has set the track for elevated herbivory by the high influx of tropical fish populations. Not only this, the increased water temperatures have exacerbated the conditions far away from the physiological tolerance level of the kelp communities (Vergés et al. 2016 ; Wernberg et al. 2016 ). Another pertinent danger is the devastation of keystone species, which even has more pervasive effects on the entire communities in that habitat (Zarnetske et al. 2012 ). It is particularly important as CC does not specify specific populations or communities. Eventually, this CC-induced redistribution of species may deteriorate carbon storage and the net ecosystem productivity (Weed et al. 2013 ). Among the typical disruptions, the prominent ones include impacts on marine and terrestrial productivity, marine community assembly, and the extended invasion of toxic cyanobacteria bloom (Fossheim et al. 2015 ).

The CC-impacted species extinction is widely reported in the literature (Beesley et al. 2019 ; Urban 2015 ), and the predictions of demise until the twenty-first century are dreadful (Abbass et al. 2019 ; Pereira et al. 2013 ). In a few cases, northward shifting of species may not be formidable as it allows mountain-dwelling species to find optimum climates. However, the migrant species may be trapped in isolated and incompatible habitats due to losing topography and range (Dullinger et al. 2012 ). For example, a study indicated that the American pika has been extirpated or intensely diminished in some regions, primarily attributed to the CC-impacted extinction or at least local extirpation (Stewart et al. 2015 ). Besides, the anticipation of persistent responses to the impacts of CC often requires data records of several decades to rigorously analyze the critical pre and post CC patterns at species and ecosystem levels (Manes et al. 2021 ; Testa et al. 2018 ).

Nonetheless, the availability of such long-term data records is rare; hence, attempts are needed to focus on these profound aspects. Biodiversity is also vulnerable to the other associated impacts of CC, such as rising temperatures, droughts, and certain invasive pest species. For instance, a study revealed the changes in the composition of plankton communities attributed to rising temperatures. Henceforth, alterations in such aquatic producer communities, i.e., diatoms and calcareous plants, can ultimately lead to variation in the recycling of biological carbon. Moreover, such changes are characterized as a potential contributor to CO 2 differences between the Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods (Kohfeld et al. 2005 ).

Climate change implications on human health

It is an understood corporality that human health is a significant victim of CC (Costello et al. 2009 ). According to the WHO, CC might be responsible for 250,000 additional deaths per year during 2030–2050 (Watts et al. 2015 ). These deaths are attributed to extreme weather-induced mortality and morbidity and the global expansion of vector-borne diseases (Lemery et al. 2021; Yang and Usman 2021 ; Meierrieks 2021 ; UNEP 2017 ). Here, some of the emerging health issues pertinent to this global problem are briefly described.

Climate change and antimicrobial resistance with corresponding economic costs

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an up-surging complex global health challenge (Garner et al. 2019 ; Lemery et al. 2021 ). Health professionals across the globe are extremely worried due to this phenomenon that has critical potential to reverse almost all the progress that has been achieved so far in the health discipline (Gosling and Arnell 2016 ). A massive amount of antibiotics is produced by many pharmaceutical industries worldwide, and the pathogenic microorganisms are gradually developing resistance to them, which can be comprehended how strongly this aspect can shake the foundations of national and global economies (UNEP 2017 ). This statement is supported by the fact that AMR is not developing in a particular region or country. Instead, it is flourishing in every continent of the world (WHO 2018 ). This plague is heavily pushing humanity to the post-antibiotic era, in which currently antibiotic-susceptible pathogens will once again lead to certain endemics and pandemics after being resistant(WHO 2018 ). Undesirably, if this statement would become a factuality, there might emerge certain risks in undertaking sophisticated interventions such as chemotherapy, joint replacement cases, and organ transplantation (Su et al. 2018 ). Presently, the amplification of drug resistance cases has made common illnesses like pneumonia, post-surgical infections, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, etc., too difficult and costly to be treated or cure well (WHO 2018 ). From a simple example, it can be assumed how easily antibiotic-resistant strains can be transmitted from one person to another and ultimately travel across the boundaries (Berendonk et al. 2015 ). Talking about the second- and third-generation classes of antibiotics, e.g., most renowned generations of cephalosporin antibiotics that are more expensive, broad-spectrum, more toxic, and usually require more extended periods whenever prescribed to patients (Lemery et al. 2021 ; Pärnänen et al. 2019 ). This scenario has also revealed that the abundance of resistant strains of pathogens was also higher in the Southern part (WHO 2018 ). As southern parts are generally warmer than their counterparts, it is evident from this example how CC-induced global warming can augment the spread of antibiotic-resistant strains within the biosphere, eventually putting additional economic burden in the face of developing new and costlier antibiotics. The ARG exchange to susceptible bacteria through one of the potential mechanisms, transformation, transduction, and conjugation; Selection pressure can be caused by certain antibiotics, metals or pesticides, etc., as shown in Fig.  5 .

A typical interaction between the susceptible and resistant strains.

Source: Elsayed et al. ( 2021 ); Karkman et al. ( 2018 )

Certain studies highlighted that conventional urban wastewater treatment plants are typical hotspots where most bacterial strains exchange genetic material through horizontal gene transfer (Fig.  5 ). Although at present, the extent of risks associated with the antibiotic resistance found in wastewater is complicated; environmental scientists and engineers have particular concerns about the potential impacts of these antibiotic resistance genes on human health (Ashbolt 2015 ). At most undesirable and worst case, these antibiotic-resistant genes containing bacteria can make their way to enter into the environment (Pruden et al. 2013 ), irrigation water used for crops and public water supplies and ultimately become a part of food chains and food webs (Ma et al. 2019 ; D. Wu et al. 2019 ). This problem has been reported manifold in several countries (Hendriksen et al. 2019 ), where wastewater as a means of irrigated water is quite common.

Climate change and vector borne-diseases

Temperature is a fundamental factor for the sustenance of living entities regardless of an ecosystem. So, a specific living being, especially a pathogen, requires a sophisticated temperature range to exist on earth. The second essential component of CC is precipitation, which also impacts numerous infectious agents’ transport and dissemination patterns. Global rising temperature is a significant cause of many species extinction. On the one hand, this changing environmental temperature may be causing species extinction, and on the other, this warming temperature might favor the thriving of some new organisms. Here, it was evident that some pathogens may also upraise once non-evident or reported (Patz et al. 2000 ). This concept can be exemplified through certain pathogenic strains of microorganisms that how the likelihood of various diseases increases in response to climate warming-induced environmental changes (Table ​ (Table2 2 ).

Examples of how various environmental changes affect various infectious diseases in humans

Source: Aron and Patz ( 2001 )

A recent example is an outburst of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the Republic of China, causing pneumonia and severe acute respiratory complications (Cui et al. 2021 ; Song et al. 2021 ). The large family of viruses is harbored in numerous animals, bats, and snakes in particular (livescience.com) with the subsequent transfer into human beings. Hence, it is worth noting that the thriving of numerous vectors involved in spreading various diseases is influenced by Climate change (Ogden 2018 ; Santos et al. 2021 ).

Psychological impacts of climate change

Climate change (CC) is responsible for the rapid dissemination and exaggeration of certain epidemics and pandemics. In addition to the vast apparent impacts of climate change on health, forestry, agriculture, etc., it may also have psychological implications on vulnerable societies. It can be exemplified through the recent outburst of (COVID-19) in various countries around the world (Pal 2021 ). Besides, the victims of this viral infection have made healthy beings scarier and terrified. In the wake of such epidemics, people with common colds or fever are also frightened and must pass specific regulatory protocols. Living in such situations continuously terrifies the public and makes the stress familiar, which eventually makes them psychologically weak (npr.org).

CC boosts the extent of anxiety, distress, and other issues in public, pushing them to develop various mental-related problems. Besides, frequent exposure to extreme climatic catastrophes such as geological disasters also imprints post-traumatic disorder, and their ubiquitous occurrence paves the way to developing chronic psychological dysfunction. Moreover, repetitive listening from media also causes an increase in the person’s stress level (Association 2020 ). Similarly, communities living in flood-prone areas constantly live in extreme fear of drowning and die by floods. In addition to human lives, the flood-induced destruction of physical infrastructure is a specific reason for putting pressure on these communities (Ogden 2018 ). For instance, Ogden ( 2018 ) comprehensively denoted that Katrina’s Hurricane augmented the mental health issues in the victim communities.

Climate change impacts on the forestry sector

Forests are the global regulators of the world’s climate (FAO 2018 ) and have an indispensable role in regulating global carbon and nitrogen cycles (Rehman et al. 2021 ; Reichstein and Carvalhais 2019 ). Hence, disturbances in forest ecology affect the micro and macro-climates (Ellison et al. 2017 ). Climate warming, in return, has profound impacts on the growth and productivity of transboundary forests by influencing the temperature and precipitation patterns, etc. As CC induces specific changes in the typical structure and functions of ecosystems (Zhang et al. 2017 ) as well impacts forest health, climate change also has several devastating consequences such as forest fires, droughts, pest outbreaks (EPA 2018 ), and last but not the least is the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities. The rising frequency and intensity of another CC product, i.e., droughts, pose plenty of challenges to the well-being of global forests (Diffenbaugh et al. 2017 ), which is further projected to increase soon (Hartmann et al. 2018 ; Lehner et al. 2017 ; Rehman et al. 2021 ). Hence, CC induces storms, with more significant impacts also put extra pressure on the survival of the global forests (Martínez-Alvarado et al. 2018 ), significantly since their influences are augmented during higher winter precipitations with corresponding wetter soils causing weak root anchorage of trees (Brázdil et al. 2018 ). Surging temperature regimes causes alterations in usual precipitation patterns, which is a significant hurdle for the survival of temperate forests (Allen et al. 2010 ; Flannigan et al. 2013 ), letting them encounter severe stress and disturbances which adversely affects the local tree species (Hubbart et al. 2016 ; Millar and Stephenson 2015 ; Rehman et al. 2021 ).

Climate change impacts on forest-dependent communities

Forests are the fundamental livelihood resource for about 1.6 billion people worldwide; out of them, 350 million are distinguished with relatively higher reliance (Bank 2008 ). Agro-forestry-dependent communities comprise 1.2 billion, and 60 million indigenous people solely rely on forests and their products to sustain their lives (Sunderlin et al. 2005 ). For example, in the entire African continent, more than 2/3rd of inhabitants depend on forest resources and woodlands for their alimonies, e.g., food, fuelwood and grazing (Wasiq and Ahmad 2004 ). The livings of these people are more intensely affected by the climatic disruptions making their lives harder (Brown et al. 2014 ). On the one hand, forest communities are incredibly vulnerable to CC due to their livelihoods, cultural and spiritual ties as well as socio-ecological connections, and on the other, they are not familiar with the term “climate change.” (Rahman and Alam 2016 ). Among the destructive impacts of temperature and rainfall, disruption of the agroforestry crops with resultant downscale growth and yield (Macchi et al. 2008 ). Cruz ( 2015 ) ascribed that forest-dependent smallholder farmers in the Philippines face the enigma of delayed fruiting, more severe damages by insect and pest incidences due to unfavorable temperature regimes, and changed rainfall patterns.

Among these series of challenges to forest communities, their well-being is also distinctly vulnerable to CC. Though the detailed climate change impacts on human health have been comprehensively mentioned in the previous section, some studies have listed a few more devastating effects on the prosperity of forest-dependent communities. For instance, the Himalayan people have been experiencing frequent skin-borne diseases such as malaria and other skin diseases due to increasing mosquitoes, wild boar as well, and new wasps species, particularly in higher altitudes that were almost non-existent before last 5–10 years (Xu et al. 2008 ). Similarly, people living at high altitudes in Bangladesh have experienced frequent mosquito-borne calamities (Fardous; Sharma 2012 ). In addition, the pace of other waterborne diseases such as infectious diarrhea, cholera, pathogenic induced abdominal complications and dengue has also been boosted in other distinguished regions of Bangladesh (Cell 2009 ; Gunter et al. 2008 ).

Pest outbreak

Upscaling hotter climate may positively affect the mobile organisms with shorter generation times because they can scurry from harsh conditions than the immobile species (Fettig et al. 2013 ; Schoene and Bernier 2012 ) and are also relatively more capable of adapting to new environments (Jactel et al. 2019 ). It reveals that insects adapt quickly to global warming due to their mobility advantages. Due to past outbreaks, the trees (forests) are relatively more susceptible victims (Kurz et al. 2008 ). Before CC, the influence of factors mentioned earlier, i.e., droughts and storms, was existent and made the forests susceptible to insect pest interventions; however, the global forests remain steadfast, assiduous, and green (Jactel et al. 2019 ). The typical reasons could be the insect herbivores were regulated by several tree defenses and pressures of predation (Wilkinson and Sherratt 2016 ). As climate greatly influences these phenomena, the global forests cannot be so sedulous against such challenges (Jactel et al. 2019 ). Table ​ Table3 3 demonstrates some of the particular considerations with practical examples that are essential while mitigating the impacts of CC in the forestry sector.

Essential considerations while mitigating the climate change impacts on the forestry sector

Source : Fischer ( 2019 )

Climate change impacts on tourism

Tourism is a commercial activity that has roots in multi-dimensions and an efficient tool with adequate job generation potential, revenue creation, earning of spectacular foreign exchange, enhancement in cross-cultural promulgation and cooperation, a business tool for entrepreneurs and eventually for the country’s national development (Arshad et al. 2018 ; Scott 2021 ). Among a plethora of other disciplines, the tourism industry is also a distinct victim of climate warming (Gössling et al. 2012 ; Hall et al. 2015 ) as the climate is among the essential resources that enable tourism in particular regions as most preferred locations. Different places at different times of the year attract tourists both within and across the countries depending upon the feasibility and compatibility of particular weather patterns. Hence, the massive variations in these weather patterns resulting from CC will eventually lead to monumental challenges to the local economy in that specific area’s particular and national economy (Bujosa et al. 2015 ). For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report demonstrated that the global tourism industry had faced a considerable decline in the duration of ski season, including the loss of some ski areas and the dramatic shifts in tourist destinations’ climate warming.

Furthermore, different studies (Neuvonen et al. 2015 ; Scott et al. 2004 ) indicated that various currently perfect tourist spots, e.g., coastal areas, splendid islands, and ski resorts, will suffer consequences of CC. It is also worth noting that the quality and potential of administrative management potential to cope with the influence of CC on the tourism industry is of crucial significance, which renders specific strengths of resiliency to numerous destinations to withstand against it (Füssel and Hildén 2014 ). Similarly, in the partial or complete absence of adequate socio-economic and socio-political capital, the high-demanding tourist sites scurry towards the verge of vulnerability. The susceptibility of tourism is based on different components such as the extent of exposure, sensitivity, life-supporting sectors, and capacity assessment factors (Füssel and Hildén 2014 ). It is obvious corporality that sectors such as health, food, ecosystems, human habitat, infrastructure, water availability, and the accessibility of a particular region are prone to CC. Henceforth, the sensitivity of these critical sectors to CC and, in return, the adaptive measures are a hallmark in determining the composite vulnerability of climate warming (Ionescu et al. 2009 ).

Moreover, the dependence on imported food items, poor hygienic conditions, and inadequate health professionals are dominant aspects affecting the local terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity. Meanwhile, the greater dependency on ecosystem services and its products also makes a destination more fragile to become a prey of CC (Rizvi et al. 2015 ). Some significant non-climatic factors are important indicators of a particular ecosystem’s typical health and functioning, e.g., resource richness and abundance portray the picture of ecosystem stability. Similarly, the species abundance is also a productive tool that ensures that the ecosystem has a higher buffering capacity, which is terrific in terms of resiliency (Roscher et al. 2013 ).

Climate change impacts on the economic sector

Climate plays a significant role in overall productivity and economic growth. Due to its increasingly global existence and its effect on economic growth, CC has become one of the major concerns of both local and international environmental policymakers (Ferreira et al. 2020 ; Gleditsch 2021 ; Abbass et al. 2021b ; Lamperti et al. 2021 ). The adverse effects of CC on the overall productivity factor of the agricultural sector are therefore significant for understanding the creation of local adaptation policies and the composition of productive climate policy contracts. Previous studies on CC in the world have already forecasted its effects on the agricultural sector. Researchers have found that global CC will impact the agricultural sector in different world regions. The study of the impacts of CC on various agrarian activities in other demographic areas and the development of relative strategies to respond to effects has become a focal point for researchers (Chandioet al. 2020 ; Gleditsch 2021 ; Mosavi et al. 2020 ).

With the rapid growth of global warming since the 1980s, the temperature has started increasing globally, which resulted in the incredible transformation of rain and evaporation in the countries. The agricultural development of many countries has been reliant, delicate, and susceptible to CC for a long time, and it is on the development of agriculture total factor productivity (ATFP) influence different crops and yields of farmers (Alhassan 2021 ; Wu  2020 ).

Food security and natural disasters are increasing rapidly in the world. Several major climatic/natural disasters have impacted local crop production in the countries concerned. The effects of these natural disasters have been poorly controlled by the development of the economies and populations and may affect human life as well. One example is China, which is among the world’s most affected countries, vulnerable to natural disasters due to its large population, harsh environmental conditions, rapid CC, low environmental stability, and disaster power. According to the January 2016 statistical survey, China experienced an economic loss of 298.3 billion Yuan, and about 137 million Chinese people were severely affected by various natural disasters (Xie et al. 2018 ).

Mitigation and adaptation strategies of climate changes

Adaptation and mitigation are the crucial factors to address the response to CC (Jahanzad et al. 2020 ). Researchers define mitigation on climate changes, and on the other hand, adaptation directly impacts climate changes like floods. To some extent, mitigation reduces or moderates greenhouse gas emission, and it becomes a critical issue both economically and environmentally (Botzen et al. 2021 ; Jahanzad et al. 2020 ; Kongsager 2018 ; Smit et al. 2000 ; Vale et al. 2021 ; Usman et al. 2021 ; Verheyen 2005 ).

Researchers have deep concern about the adaptation and mitigation methodologies in sectoral and geographical contexts. Agriculture, industry, forestry, transport, and land use are the main sectors to adapt and mitigate policies(Kärkkäinen et al. 2020 ; Waheed et al. 2021 ). Adaptation and mitigation require particular concern both at the national and international levels. The world has faced a significant problem of climate change in the last decades, and adaptation to these effects is compulsory for economic and social development. To adapt and mitigate against CC, one should develop policies and strategies at the international level (Hussain et al. 2020 ). Figure  6 depicts the list of current studies on sectoral impacts of CC with adaptation and mitigation measures globally.

Sectoral impacts of climate change with adaptation and mitigation measures.

Conclusion and future perspectives

Specific socio-agricultural, socio-economic, and physical systems are the cornerstone of psychological well-being, and the alteration in these systems by CC will have disastrous impacts. Climate variability, alongside other anthropogenic and natural stressors, influences human and environmental health sustainability. Food security is another concerning scenario that may lead to compromised food quality, higher food prices, and inadequate food distribution systems. Global forests are challenged by different climatic factors such as storms, droughts, flash floods, and intense precipitation. On the other hand, their anthropogenic wiping is aggrandizing their existence. Undoubtedly, the vulnerability scale of the world’s regions differs; however, appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures can aid the decision-making bodies in developing effective policies to tackle its impacts. Presently, modern life on earth has tailored to consistent climatic patterns, and accordingly, adapting to such considerable variations is of paramount importance. Because the faster changes in climate will make it harder to survive and adjust, this globally-raising enigma calls for immediate attention at every scale ranging from elementary community level to international level. Still, much effort, research, and dedication are required, which is the most critical time. Some policy implications can help us to mitigate the consequences of climate change, especially the most affected sectors like the agriculture sector;

Warming might lengthen the season in frost-prone growing regions (temperate and arctic zones), allowing for longer-maturing seasonal cultivars with better yields (Pfadenhauer 2020 ; Bonacci 2019 ). Extending the planting season may allow additional crops each year; when warming leads to frequent warmer months highs over critical thresholds, a split season with a brief summer fallow may be conceivable for short-period crops such as wheat barley, cereals, and many other vegetable crops. The capacity to prolong the planting season in tropical and subtropical places where the harvest season is constrained by precipitation or agriculture farming occurs after the year may be more limited and dependent on how precipitation patterns vary (Wu et al. 2017 ).

The genetic component is comprehensive for many yields, but it is restricted like kiwi fruit for a few. Ali et al. ( 2017 ) investigated how new crops will react to climatic changes (also stated in Mall et al. 2017 ). Hot temperature, drought, insect resistance; salt tolerance; and overall crop production and product quality increases would all be advantageous (Akkari 2016 ). Genetic mapping and engineering can introduce a greater spectrum of features. The adoption of genetically altered cultivars has been slowed, particularly in the early forecasts owing to the complexity in ensuring features are expediently expressed throughout the entire plant, customer concerns, economic profitability, and regulatory impediments (Wirehn 2018 ; Davidson et al. 2016 ).

To get the full benefit of the CO 2 would certainly require additional nitrogen and other fertilizers. Nitrogen not consumed by the plants may be excreted into groundwater, discharged into water surface, or emitted from the land, soil nitrous oxide when large doses of fertilizer are sprayed. Increased nitrogen levels in groundwater sources have been related to human chronic illnesses and impact marine ecosystems. Cultivation, grain drying, and other field activities have all been examined in depth in the studies (Barua et al. 2018 ).

• The technological and socio-economic adaptation

The policy consequence of the causative conclusion is that as a source of alternative energy, biofuel production is one of the routes that explain oil price volatility separate from international macroeconomic factors. Even though biofuel production has just begun in a few sample nations, there is still a tremendous worldwide need for feedstock to satisfy industrial expansion in China and the USA, which explains the food price relationship to the global oil price. Essentially, oil-exporting countries may create incentives in their economies to increase food production. It may accomplish by giving farmers financing, seedlings, fertilizers, and farming equipment. Because of the declining global oil price and, as a result, their earnings from oil export, oil-producing nations may be unable to subsidize food imports even in the near term. As a result, these countries can boost the agricultural value chain for export. It may be accomplished through R&D and adding value to their food products to increase income by correcting exchange rate misalignment and adverse trade terms. These nations may also diversify their economies away from oil, as dependence on oil exports alone is no longer economically viable given the extreme volatility of global oil prices. Finally, resource-rich and oil-exporting countries can convert to non-food renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro, coal, wind, wave, and tidal energy. By doing so, both world food and oil supplies would be maintained rather than harmed.

IRENA’s modeling work shows that, if a comprehensive policy framework is in place, efforts toward decarbonizing the energy future will benefit economic activity, jobs (outweighing losses in the fossil fuel industry), and welfare. Countries with weak domestic supply chains and a large reliance on fossil fuel income, in particular, must undertake structural reforms to capitalize on the opportunities inherent in the energy transition. Governments continue to give major policy assistance to extract fossil fuels, including tax incentives, financing, direct infrastructure expenditures, exemptions from environmental regulations, and other measures. The majority of major oil and gas producing countries intend to increase output. Some countries intend to cut coal output, while others plan to maintain or expand it. While some nations are beginning to explore and execute policies aimed at a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuel production, these efforts have yet to impact major producing countries’ plans and goals. Verifiable and comparable data on fossil fuel output and assistance from governments and industries are critical to closing the production gap. Governments could increase openness by declaring their production intentions in their climate obligations under the Paris Agreement.

It is firmly believed that achieving the Paris Agreement commitments is doubtlful without undergoing renewable energy transition across the globe (Murshed 2020 ; Zhao et al. 2022 ). Policy instruments play the most important role in determining the degree of investment in renewable energy technology. This study examines the efficacy of various policy strategies in the renewable energy industry of multiple nations. Although its impact is more visible in established renewable energy markets, a renewable portfolio standard is also a useful policy instrument. The cost of producing renewable energy is still greater than other traditional energy sources. Furthermore, government incentives in the R&D sector can foster innovation in this field, resulting in cost reductions in the renewable energy industry. These nations may export their technologies and share their policy experiences by forming networks among their renewable energy-focused organizations. All policy measures aim to reduce production costs while increasing the proportion of renewables to a country’s energy system. Meanwhile, long-term contracts with renewable energy providers, government commitment and control, and the establishment of long-term goals can assist developing nations in deploying renewable energy technology in their energy sector.

Author contribution

KA: Writing the original manuscript, data collection, data analysis, Study design, Formal analysis, Visualization, Revised draft, Writing-review, and editing. MZQ: Writing the original manuscript, data collection, data analysis, Writing-review, and editing. HS: Contribution to the contextualization of the theme, Conceptualization, Validation, Supervision, literature review, Revised drapt, and writing review and editing. MM: Writing review and editing, compiling the literature review, language editing. HM: Writing review and editing, compiling the literature review, language editing. IY: Contribution to the contextualization of the theme, literature review, and writing review and editing.

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Horizon Europe strategic plan 2025-2027

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• Published: 2024
• Corporate author(s): Directorate-General for Research and Innovation ( European Commission )
• Themes: Research policy and organisation
• Subject: digital transformation , EU programme , EU research policy , green economy , innovation , international cooperation , new technology , organisation of research , research budget , sustainable development
• Released on EU Publications: 2024-03-20

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One Thing Most Countries Have in Common: Unsafe Air

New research found that fewer than 10 percent of countries and territories met World Health Organization guidelines for particulate matter pollution last year.

By Delger Erdenesanaa

Only 10 countries and territories out of 134 achieved the World Health Organization’s standards for a pervasive form of air pollution last year, according to air quality data compiled by IQAir , a Swiss company.

The pollution studied is called fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, because it refers to solid particles less than 2.5 micrometers in size: small enough to enter the bloodstream. PM2.5 is the deadliest form of air pollution, leading to millions of premature deaths each year .

“Air pollution and climate change both have the same culprit, which is fossil fuels,” said Glory Dolphin Hammes, the CEO of IQAir’s North American division.

The World Health Organization sets a guideline that people shouldn’t breathe more than 5 micrograms of fine particulate matter per cubic meter of air, on average, throughout a year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed tightening its standard from 12 to 9 micrograms per cubic meter.

The few oases of clean air that meet World Health Organization guidelines are mostly islands, as well as Australia and the northern European countries of Finland and Estonia. Of the non-achievers, where the vast majority of the human population lives, the countries with the worst air quality were mostly in Asia and Africa.

Where some of the dirtiest air is found

The four most polluted countries in IQAir’s ranking for 2023 — Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Tajikistan — are in South and Central Asia.

Air quality sensors in almost a third of the region’s cities reported concentrations of fine particulate matter that were more than 10 times the WHO guideline. This was a proportion “vastly exceeding any other region,” the report’s authors wrote.

The researchers pointed to vehicle traffic, coal and industrial emissions, particularly from brick kilns, as major sources of the region’s pollution. Farmers seasonally burning their crop waste contribute to the problem, as do households burning wood and dung for heat and cooking.

China reversed recent gains

One notable change in 2023 was a 6.3 percent increase in China’s air pollution compared with 2022, after at least five years of improvement. Beijing experienced a 14 percent increase in PM2.5 pollution last year.

The national government announced a “war against pollution” in 2014 and had been making progress ever since. But the sharpest decline in China’s PM2.5 pollution happened in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic forced much of the country’s economic activity to slow or shut down. Ms. Dolphin Hammes attributed last year’s uptick to a reopening economy.

And challenges remain: Eleven cities in China reported air pollution levels last year that exceeded the WHO guidelines by 10 times or more. The worst was Hotan, Xinjiang.

Significant gaps in the data

IQAir researchers analyze data from more than 30,000 air quality monitoring stations and sensors across 134 countries, territories and disputed regions. Some of these monitoring stations are run by government agencies, while others are overseen by nonprofit organizations, schools, private companies and citizen scientists.

There are large gaps in ground-level air quality monitoring in Africa and the Middle East, including in regions where satellite data show some of the highest levels of air pollution on Earth.

As IQAir works to add data from more cities and countries in future years, “the worst might be yet to come in terms of what we’re measuring,” Ms. Dolphin Hammes said.

Wildfire smoke: a growing problem

Although North America is one of the cleaner regions in the world, in 2023 wildfires burned 4 percent of Canada’s forests, an area about half the size of Germany, and significantly impaired air quality.

Usually, North America’s list of most polluted cities is dominated by the United States. But last year, the top 13 spots all went to Canadian cities, many of them in Alberta.

In the United States, cities in the Upper Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic states also got significant amounts of PM2.5 pollution from wildfire smoke that drifted across the border.

Risks of short-term exposure

It’s not just chronic exposure to air pollution that harms people’s health.

For vulnerable people like the very young and old, or those with underlying illnesses, breathing in large amounts of fine particulate pollution for just a few hours or days can sometimes be deadly. About 1 million premature deaths per year can be attributed to short-term PM2.5 exposure, according to a recent global study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

The problem is worst in East and South Asia, as well as in West Africa.

Without accounting for short-term exposures, “we might be underestimating the mortality burden from air pollution,” said Yuming Guo, a professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and one of the study’s authors.

U.S. disparities widen

Within individual countries, air pollution and its health effects aren’t evenly distributed.

Air quality in the United States has generally been improving since the Clean Air Act of the 1970s. Last decade, premature deaths from PM2.5 exposure declined to about 49,400 in 2019, down from about 69,000 in 2010.

But progress has happened faster in some communities than in others. Racial and ethnic disparities in air pollution deaths have grown in recent years, according to a national study published this month .

The census tracts in the United States with the fewest white residents have about 32 percent higher rates of PM2.5-related deaths, compared with those with the most white residents. This disparity in deaths per capita has increased by 16 percent between 2010 and 2019.

The study examined race and ethnicity separately, and found the disparity between the census tracts with the most and least Hispanic residents grew even more, by 40 percent.

In IQAir’s rankings, the United States is doing much better than most other countries. But studies that dig deeper show air quality is still an issue, said Gaige Kerr, a research scientist at George Washington University and the lead author of the disparities paper published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. “There’s still a lot of work to do,” he said.

Dr. Kerr’s research showed that mortality rates were highest on the Gulf Coast and in the Ohio River Valley, in areas dominated by petrochemical and manufacturing industries. He also noted that researchers have seen a slight uptick in rates of PM2.5-related deaths starting around 2016, particularly in the Western states, likely because of increasing wildfires.

Delger Erdenesanaa is a reporter covering climate and the environment and a member of the 2023-24 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Delger Erdenesanaa

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