Climate

Representative Andrew Garbarino of New York is at the center of a Republican push to save a key part of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s climate agenda.

The fossil fuel industry’s role in driving climate change is undeniable, yet corporate accountability remains a contested space. As the scientific evidence strengthens, courts around the world are increasingly considering the role of major fossil fuel companies in climate-related damages. Our latest research—published today in Environmental Research Letters—adds a critical piece to this legal and scientific puzzle by quantifying how emissions from the world’s largest fossil fuel and cement producers have directly contributed to sea level rise, both historically and in the centuries to come. 

Advancing Climate Attribution Science 

Attribution science has evolved to the point where we can now link certain climate impacts to emissions from identifiable entities, including corporations. Our study applies the well-established MAGICC7 climate model to trace heat-trapping emissions from the 122 largest fossil fuel and cement producers—the Carbon Majors—and assess their contributions to present-day and future global mean sea level rise. 

Our findings are stark: emissions traced to these industrial actors are responsible for 37-58% of the observed global surface temperature increase and 24-37% of historical sea level rise. Moreover, our research projects that these past emissions alone have all but guaranteed an additional 10 to 22 inches (0.26-0.55 meters) of sea level rise by 2300 —even if all emissions were to stop today. Importantly, this projected rise is in addition to the sea level rise driven by emissions from all other sources. This long-term impact reflects the delayed response of ocean temperatures and ice sheet dynamics to past greenhouse gas emissions. 

These results demonstrate that the damages we are experiencing today, and those that will continue to unfold for centuries, are directly tied to the actions of a small number of corporate actors whose products and deceptive conduct have been driving climate change. 

Why This Matters for Climate Litigation 

Climate litigation has become a powerful tool for holding corporations accountable for their role in fueling climate change. Cases such as Milieudefensie et al. v. Royal Dutch Shell , Saúl Luciano Lliuya vs. RWE, and Delaware v. BP et al. are among those seeking to hold fossil fuel companies legally accountable for their contributions to climate change.  

Our study provides quantitative, peer-reviewed scientific evidence that may help inform litigation strategies in several ways: 

• Strengthening Causation Arguments: Courts require clear scientific evidence linking defendants’ actions to damages. Our research quantifies the specific share of global temperature rise and sea level rise that can be attributed to emissions from major fossil fuel producers, reinforcing claims of causation. 

• Informing Liability and Damages Assessments: The long-term costs of sea level rise, ranging from infrastructure damage to displacement, are expected to reach trillions of dollars. By establishing a direct link between historical emissions and projected sea level rise, our findings contribute to discussions on liability and potential financial responsibility. 

• Countering Industry Defenses: Fossil fuel companies often argue that climate change is the result of collective emissions rather than the responsibility of any particular entity. Our study results directly challenge this premise by demonstrating that a share of sea level rise can be attributed to the products traced to a limited number of companies. 

• Emphasizing the Urgency of Action: Delayed emissions reductions all but guarantee future damages. Our study highlights that earlier mitigation efforts could have significantly reduced today’s impacts—and further delays will only increase the severity of future sea level rise and its consequences. The longer action is delayed, the greater the avoidable consequences for coastal communities worldwide. 

The Role of Science in Accountability and Justice 

Scientific research has played a role in informing policy and its importance in litigation is growing. Our study builds on past attribution work that has already been cited in legal arguments worldwide. This growing body of evidence works hand in hand with research showing that fossil fuel companies have long understood the climate consequences of their extraction, production, promotion, and sale of oil, gas, and coal.  

Rather than taking responsibility, they have actively misled the public about the dangersand the harms we are now experiencing. The consequences of their actions are no longer speculative; they are quantifiable, they are unfolding before our eyes, and they are disproportionately affecting people and communities with the least capacity to withstand devastating climate impacts. 

Looking Ahead 

As legal battles over climate accountability continue, science will remain a cornerstone of these efforts. Our study contributes to the broader understanding of how industrial emissions have shaped global climate impacts and provides courts with data to inform their deliberations. 

While litigation alone won’t solve the climate crisis, it is one piece of the broader landscape of climate governance. Establishing clear scientific links between emissions and damages is a critical step in ensuring that those responsible are held accountable and that decision-makers have the evidence needed to act. 

The scientific reality is clear: emissions traced to major fossil fuel producers have played a significant role in driving present-day sea level rise, and the long-term consequences of these emissions will continue to shape our world for centuries to come. 

Accountability for past emissions should be a critical part in addressing climate change. But the first step in seeking accountability for the highest emitters, whether corporations or countries, is quantifying their contributions. While the pursuit of accountability should consider their role in creating and spreading disinformation and their deception around climate science and research, their contributions of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere are an important place to start. Here, I’ll describe the data currently available to quantify these emissions, what they tell us about the drivers of climate change, and how we can achieve accountability for its harms moving forward.  

Who are the Carbon Majors?  

The Carbon Majors are the largest fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers, and a group to which 67.5% of all fossil fuel and cement emissions can be traced. To put a finer point on the immense impact of just a few organizations, more than one-third of these industrial emissions can be traced to just 26 companies. The Carbon Majors database includes emissions traced to investor-owned companies like ExxonMobil, BP, and Peabody; state-owned entities like SaudiAramco and Gazprom; and a handful of nation-states with dedicated fossil fuel and cement production, presently or historically, like China, Former Soviet Union.  

Earlier today, my colleague Shaina Sadai released a peer-reviewed study that links emissions traced to the Carbon Majors to present-day and future sea level rise. This study adds yet another example of how emissions from these entities are driving climate impacts globally. Previous UCS studies have already linked their emissions to increases in global average temperature, ocean acidification, and area burned by wildfires. When considered with the growing evidence of companies’ deception and disinformation, these studies paint a damning picture of how these companies shaped our world and the inequities that they’ve reinforced globally.  

These data also show that although humans have been emitting heat-trapping emissions into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, 50% of emissions traced to the Carbon Majors have been released since just 2000.  When visualizing data, clarifying the units used is critical. When it comes to emissions, this means distinguishing between cumulative historical (all the heat-trapping emissions they’ve ever emitted over time) and annual (all emissions each year). Both aggregations tell important stories that can help us to mitigate and adapt to climate change, but not specifying how the data are expressed is not only imprecise but can be deliberately misleading.  The data in the figure below show annual emissions measured in gigatons of CO2 per year.  

Source: UCS/Carbon Majors Dataset

As I wrote in an earlier blog that detailed the nitty gritty and backstory of this data, lawsuits and legal submissions worldwide cite the Carbon Majors Dataset to draw attention to the outsized role of fossil fuel companies in driving the climate crisis, including:  

• Lliuya vs RWE, where a Peruvian farmer is suing one of Europe’s largest emitters of heat trapping gases for its role in increasing the risk of a glacial lake outburst flooding, which threatens him and the entire community of Huaraz. This case uses the Carbon Majors Dataset to quantify RWE’s contribution to global historic emissions.  

• Greenpeace Italia vs ENI, where affected communities are suing to force ENI, Italy’s largest energy company, to reduce emissions and limit global warming. This case uses the Carbon Majors Dataset and source attribution research to underscore the outsized role of ENI in driving climate change. 

• People of California vs Big Oil, where California is suing ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell and others for misleading advertising, failure to warn and fraudulent business practices. This filing uses these data to demonstrate that the contribution of heat-trapping gases traced to their defendants is quantifiable.  

• Multnomah County vs Big Oil, where the largest county in Oregon, home to Portland, is suing ExxonMobil and others for damages and adaptation costs following 2021’s unprecedented and deadly heatwave. This filing uses the Carbon Majors Dataset to show that emissions attributable to each entity are calculable using the amount, type, and emissions factor associated with each product.   

• Commission on Human Rights in the Philippines, which was petitioned to investigate the impact of climate change on human rights and the role of the ‘Carbon Majors’ in driving climate change and obstructing action. 

• InterAmerican Court of Human Rights, where Colombia and Chile requested an advisory opinion to clarify the state’s human rights obligations in light of climate change. UCS’ joint intervention used these data to highlight the role of a handful of corporations play in driving climate change.  

What about emissions from countries?  

When it comes to emissions, fossil fuel companies are not the only entities that have disproportionately contributed to the atmosphere’s ever increasing concentration of heat-trapping emissions. Some countries, like the United States, Russia, China and Germany, have also contributed an outsized amount of emissions to the atmosphere, and as a result should bear a proportionate amount of responsibility for addressing climate change and its impacts.   

The data presented below are from the Global Carbon Project and separate from the Carbon Majors data discussed above. This figure displays annual emissions by country, highlighting the massive historical contribution of the United States (nearly 25% of total global emissions), where several large Carbon Majors are headquartered. But more discouraging are the barely visible contributions (shown in purple) of many nations that are now bearing the brunt of climate change impacts —countries like Tonga and Pakistan, among many, many others. Plotted together, these data tell a powerful story about historical contributions and contextualize discussions around future responsibilities.  

Source: Global Carbon Project  What do these data mean for climate accountability?  

Emissions attributed to both the Carbon Majors and individual countries paint a picture of historical contributions that’s difficult to unsee—and inspires a call for accountability.  

In the US, states, counties, and communities are seeking accountability through the courts. These lawsuits primarily focus on fossil fuel companies’ deception and disinformation campaigns that delayed climate action for years and continues to pollute our public discourse.  While industry, trade groups, and their political allies have fought to dismiss the suits, courts across the country, including the Supreme Court just last week, have continued to affirm the right to seek accountability through the courts.  

Internationally, high emitting countries continue to benefit from their historical emissions at the expense of many emerging economies that bear the brunt of climate impacts but have contributed the least amount of heat-trapping emissions. In multilateral agreements, powerful countries have resisted and slowed the adoption of mechanisms for accountability sought by more vulnerable nations.    

At COP27 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, countries around the world established a Loss and Damage Fund to aid developing countries who are most vulnerable to climate change but have contributed the least to the atmosphere. Countries initially pledged more than 700 million dollars to the fund. While this appears to be an entry point in the path toward accountability, this amount is far below the estimated need of 300 billion annually by 2035 – just 0.2% of what is needed  Further, in early March, the US announced its withdrawal from the Loss and Damage Fund.  

But these data don’t tell the full story, particularly regarding the environmental racism and injustice wrought by the fossil fuel and high-emitting countries. This is especially evident in Cancer Alley in southern Louisiana, where a high density of petrochemical plants and refineries with scarce regulation and willful neglect, have led to elevated rates of cancer and other health issues, a burden particularly borne by Black residents.  

The Trump Administration has already reneged on the US’ bare minimum commitments  to address issues of climate justice. We’ve seen fossil fuel industry leaders and climate deniers put in positions of authority. The US has pulled out of the Paris Agreement and stopped federal scientists from engaging with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global scientific body.  

These data—both for countries and major carbon producers—tell a clear story about the history of human climate pollution, and the responsibilities of large emitters to act as the impacts of climate change grow increasingly severe. The need to hold them accountable, and guarantee they take up that responsibility, must guide our work every day.  

In a new study released today, UCS attributes substantial temperature and sea level rise to emissions traced to the largest fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers. And for the first time, we extend sea level projections into the future, quantifying how past heat-trapping emissions from the fossil fuel industry will impact the world for centuries to come. 

The world’s largest fossil fuel and cement producers have known for decades that their products cause climate change, yet they spread disinformation to misinform the public and have profited as people around the world have suffered from ever-worsening climate impacts. Previous attribution research published by my Union of Concerned Scientists colleagues have allowed us to draw causal connections between sources of heat-trapping emissions and resulting impacts, like present day increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, air temperatures, sea levels, ocean acidification, and wildfire burned area. At the same time, social science research has shed light on what the industry knew and when they knew it.  

In our new study, we bring together those two lines of research to understand what would have happened if fossil fuels had been phased out following key developments throughout history. We found that heat-trapping emissions traced to major carbon polluters have contributed to nearly half of present day surface air temperature rise and nearly a third to the observed global mean sea level rise. And critically, we demonstrate how these emissions will cause harm for centuries to come.  

The past haunts the future 

Our new research quantifies how sea levels will rise for hundreds of years as a result of past emissions traced to products produced and sold by the Carbon Majors. By comparing scenarios, with and without industrial fossil fuel development and its associated emissions, we find that past emissions from the Carbon Majors are projected to lead to an additional 0.26-0.55 m (10-21 inches) of sea level rise by the year 2300. While the magnitude of future sea level rise will depend on how emissions evolve this century our results attributing additional future sea level rise to past emissions are largely unchanged, regardless of what future emissions trajectories the world follows.

If the Carbon Majors emissions had ceased after 1990, the long-term sea level rise just from past emissions traced to their products is projected to be an additional 0.17-0.35 m (6-14 inches), showing how just a few decades of emissions can have a big impact on the future. Every delay in phasing out fossil fuels will burden future generations who need to adapt to rising seas and recover from loss and damage due to sea level impacts. 

The world that could have been 

To represent versions of the world that could have been if different actions had been taken and the world had acted in a timely manner to address the harms of fossil fuels, we develop several different counterfactual scenarios. We use the newly updated Carbon Majors database which quantifies annual emissions associated with coal, oil, gas, and cement production by each of the 122 largest fossil fuel and cement producers from 1854-2022. We explore 3 counterfactual scenarios, where we remove the emissions from these companies starting in a particular year: 

• 1854 counterfactual: A world where industrial fossil fuel development never occurred. In this scenario we remove emissions from the world’s largest fossil fuel and cement producers starting in the year 1854. This is the earliest time period we can reliably know how much fossil fuels were being produced by different companies. 

• 1950 counterfactual: A world where fossil fuels had been phased out when the industry knew that fossil fuels were harming the climate system. In this scenario we remove fossil fuel industry emissions after 1950 when research has shown that companies were internally aware of the harms of their products. 

• 1990 counterfactual: A world where the international community had acted swiftly to phase out fossil fuels at the start of international efforts to address climate change. In this scenario we remove industry emissions after 1990, when the international community was first forming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

In each set of simulations, we subtract emissions traced to the largest producers from the full emissions that actually occurred, and use a climate model, the MAGICC model, to determine what would have happened if the emissions from these companies never entered the atmosphere. MAGICC (Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change) is a publicly accessible model that been widely used, including in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports to understand how future climate could respond to different heat-trapping emissions scenarios. 

Across all scenarios, we find that the world would have been cooler and the sea levels lower if fossil fuel emissions had been phased out earlier. We find that heat-trapping emissions traced to the Carbon Majors during 1854-2020 have contributed to as much as 57% to present day surface air temperature rise and as much as 37% to the observed global mean sea level rise. In the 1950 counterfactual scenario, modern temperatures (averaged from 1990-2020) would have been 0.41-0.66°C above the preindustrial (1850-1900) average and global sea levels would have risen by 0.12-0.17 m. This implies that these companies are responsible for as much as 57% of the present-day air temperature rise and as much as 36% of the present day sea level rise in this scenario. Impacts are similar in the 1854 and 1950 counterfactuals due to the relatively small amount of heat-trapping emissions released 1854-1950 relative to the enormous amount of emissions released after 1950. 

In the 1990 counterfactual, the Carbon Majors are responsible for as much as 26% of the present-day air temperature rise and as much as 17% of the present-day sea level rise. The 1990 scenario has full historical emissions from 1854-1990 and then emissions from the fossil fuel industry removed 1990-2020. The climate impacts from emissions in recent decades are not yet fully realized, meaning this scenario underestimates the industry’s responsibility.   

How does this study compare to what was found in previous UCS research? 

The findings of our new research corroborate those of previous UCS studies, affirming the strength of our methods and accuracy of models used. By using the newest available emissions data for the Carbon Majors, this study extends this type of attribution research to present day. The main advancement of this particular study is the look to the future, which the updated methodology allowed us to do. 

This research uses the same climate modeling approach used in the 6th IPCC report (2021) to project future temperatures under different emissions scenarios. Previous UCS research had used methods derived from the 5th IPCC report, released in 2014.  

One of the biggest differences between these two approaches is how they determine sea level rise. The previously used model was only backward looking, meaning it could describe sea level rise in the past. The new model accounts for different drivers of sea level change, including ice sheet models and glacier models, capturing dynamics that were not happening in the recent past and allowing us to project into the future. 

Using research to motivate action 

Our research shows that emissions traced to the world’s largest fossil fuel and cement manufacturers have caused global temperatures and sea levels to rise, and that sea levels will continue to rise for hundreds of years in response to heat-trapping emissions which have already occurred. The fossil fuel industry knew by the 1950s that their products were causing climate change and at any time in the intervening decades they could have changed their business model to phaseout fossil fuels, yet they chose to keep producing, and profiting from, these harmful products. These actions have led to worsening climate change which will impact people in the future for centuries to come. 

 
As the people around the world experience the devastating impacts of stronger storms, more destructive wildfires, sea level rise, and other detrimental changes they are calling for those who are responsible to be held accountable. Communities around the world are pursuing accountability through court cases based on the fact that the fossil fuel industry knowingly deceived the public while producing products that would increase risks of climate change. Research that can trace specific climate impacts to the heat-trapping emissions produced by these companies can help inform this litigation. Researchers can help play a role by designing research questions that inform global action. It is long past time the world to phaseout fossil fuels and to get accountability for the harms that have occurred—and will occur in the coming years. The time to take action is now. 

Pat McFadden, Cabinet Office minister, says changes to be announced today are about giving people ‘hope of work in the future’

Q: Why have you changed your mind on this?

Badenoch says she has not changed her mind. As a member of the government, she abided by collective responsibility. She says in government she regularly questioned the case for net zero.

The person who’s been consistent in all this is me.

I’m not going to pretend that I won’t have critics … This is politics. Being a politician is about being criticised.

What I’m asking people to do is listen to what I’m saying. I am not doing what all the other parties are doing. We are changing the way we do things.

That’s not how it works. You can’t just pull [a date] out of the air. And what we did was pick a target and then start thinking of how to get there.

We need to start thinking about it in a different way. How does this impact families? How is business going to help us deliver? And that’s what the policy commissions are going to do.

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Ana Toni also criticises the UK’s plans to slash overseas aid to fund defence spending

Countries looking to boost their national security through rearmament or increased defence spending must also bolster their climate efforts or face more wars in the future, one of the leaders of the next UN climate summit has warned.

Some countries could decide to include climate spending in their defence budgets, suggested Ana Toni, Brazil’s chief executive of the Cop30 summit.

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More than 1,000 chemists, biologists and other scientists could be laid off under a plan to dismantle the Office of Research and Development.

Nonprofit groups have sued the agency to get access to grants approved by Congress to fund climate and clean energy projects across the country.

Break in cross-party consensus on issue to be announced on Tuesday

Kemi Badenoch is dropping her party’s commitment to reaching net zero by 2050, as she launches the Conservatives’ widest policy review in a generation.

The Tory leader will give a speech on Tuesday in which she will argue that hitting Britain’s legally binding climate target is “impossible”, abandoning one of the most significant policies enacted by her recent predecessor Theresa May.

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Revealed: Edelman worked for Brazilian trade group accused of pushing for environmental rollbacks in Amazon

Edelman, the world’s largest public relations agency, is in talks to work with the Cop30 team organising the UN climate summit in the Amazon later this year despite its prior connections to a major trade group accused of lobbying to roll back measures to protect the area from deforestation, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal.

The summit is set to take place in November in the city of Belém on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, which has been ravaged by deforestation linked to Brazil’s powerful agriculture industry. For the first time, the talks will be “at the epicenter of the climate crisis”, the summit’s president wrote last week. “As the Cop comes to the Amazon, forests will naturally be a central topic,” he added.

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Despite President Trump’s rollback of climate policy, some Republicans and business leaders say clean energy can help his “energy dominance” agenda.

The IPCC compiles scientific insights on climate change, informing policymakers and the public about risks and possible actions. One of its core tools is the use of future scenarios. Climate models and climate impact studies use emission scenarios—estimates of potential future changes in heat-trapping emissions—to help us see how choices made about emissions today can shape tomorrow’s climate. If you live in a coastal zone and have looked at maps of future sea level rise or have read about how climate change could be slowed with policy changes to reduce emissions, you’ve likely seen these scenarios in action. In essence, combined with climate models, they provide a way to envision the consequences of different actions or inactions. 

Scenarios used in the IPCC are often mentioned in discussions about national climate targets, corporate sustainability plans, extreme weather events, slow onset events like sea level rise, and climate litigation. But what exactly are emission scenarios, how are they structured, and why are they essential for understanding climate change impacts and mitigation strategies? 

What Are Future Climate Scenarios? 

Scenarios are projections of future human-caused emissions and their effects on the Earth’s climate system. These scenarios are not predictions; they are “what-if” frameworks that allow us to test the likely outcomes of various choices and actions. By examining possible trajectories for global economic development, technology adoption, and policy actions, the driving forces behind emissions, these scenarios help us assess a range of potential climate futures. 

How Scenarios Have Evolved 

Over the years, the IPCC and the scientific community has refined how it develops these scenarios. Initially it used four different emission storylines from the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) as a scientific basis, however, recognizing the need for a more flexible and policy-relevant framework, scientists developed the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) for the IPCC reports. Four RCP scenarios describe different levels of radiative forcing in the atmosphere by 2100. Radiative forcing is the change in energy balance in the Earth’s atmosphere due to heat trapping emissions. The use of radiative forcing to understand emissions trajectories was then paired with varied political pathways to generate Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs).  

The IPCC currently uses five SSPs that represent different ways society could evolve, incorporating everything from energy use to policy decisions that shape the climate future we may experience. These pathways describe different global socioeconomic conditions (e.g., levels of cooperation or competition among countries, technology adoption, and inequality) in terms of radiative forcing. The five shared socioeconomic pathways are:  

• SSP1: Taking the green road– A world focused on sustainable development, global cooperation, and green technology adoption. This scenario would lead to the least amount of global warming. 

• SSP2: Middle of the road – A scenario where global trends continue along historical patterns, with moderate development and emissions reductions. 

• SSP3: A rocky road – A fragmented world with regional conflicts, slow economic growth, and high inequality, leading to continued high emissions. 

• SSP4: A divided world – A highly unequal world where some adopt clean technology while much of the population remains dependent on fossil fuels. 

• SSP5: Taking the highway – A scenario driven by economic growth and high fossil fuel use, leading to rapid warming. 

These scenarios are identified by their social pathway and the approximate level of radiative forcing resulting from the scenario by 2100.  

Figure 1: Future annual CO2 emissions in the five illustrative scenarios 

Source: Sixth Assessment Report of IPCC Working Group I, 2021 

By combining radiative forcing (the climate side, represented by the numbers at the end of each scenario name e.g. 1.9 and 8.5) with socioeconomic factors, SSP scenarios provide a richer description of how the world might develop and how that development would influence emissions.  

How Do IPCC Scenarios Inform Climate Research? 

IPCC scenarios serve as foundational tools in climate research, enabling scientists to explore how different concentrations of heat-trapping emissions influence global temperatures, sea level rise, extreme weather events, and broader environmental changes. These scenarios are used in climate models to simulate various outcomes based on emissions trajectories, helping researchers assess climate system responses to different forcings.  

One of the primary applications of IPCC scenarios is in global climate modeling. Climate scientists run general circulation models (GCMs) with these scenarios to simulate future climate states under these different emissions pathways. Studies show that high-emission scenarios like SSP5-8.5 lead to significant disruptions in atmospheric circulation patterns, affecting monsoons and mid-latitude storm tracks, compared to the low-emissions scenario SSP1-2.6. 

IPCC scenarios also help scientists evaluate changes in the intensity and frequency of events like hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires. A recent review of tropical cyclone studies found that under high-emissions scenarios (SSP5-8.5), storms become more intense and produce heavier rainfall—even if their overall global frequency decreases. Lower-emission scenarios (SSP1-2.6) show more moderate increases, underscoring how different policy choices alter storm behavior. 

These scenarios can also reveal how forests, oceans, and other natural systems might absorb or release carbon in the future. Research published in Earth System Science Data examined how under high-emission scenarios (SSP5-8.5), the ability of forests and oceans to absorb CO₂ weakens. Meanwhile, an intermediate scenario (SSP2-4.5) shows these natural “carbon sinks” remaining more effective for longer.  

These are just a few examples of how researchers use these scenarios to help us understand possible climate futures.  

Why Understanding These Scenarios Matters 

These scenarios illustrate the range of potential climate outcomes based on different emissions trajectories, helping to assess the impact of various policy choices. A world limited to 1.5°C warming contrasts sharply with a high-emissions path. Without these scenarios, it would be nearly impossible to quantify the consequences of different emissions pathways or evaluate which strategies might work best to address climate change. These scenarios provide more than just hypothetical futures; they are tools for informed decision-making. They allow researchers, policymakers, and the public to grasp the potential consequences of inaction versus proactive climate strategies.  

As we navigate the challenges of climate change, these scenarios remind us that the future remains open—and that our collective actions today will determine the climate reality we pass on to future generations. 

Energy security and net zero secretary travels to Beijing for countries’ first formal climate meetings since 2017

Ed Miliband has accused the previous Conservative government of negligence for failing to engage with China on climate issues, as he travelled to Beijing for the countries’ first formal climate meetings since 2017.

The secretary of state for energy security and net zero was in Beijing to announce a new annual UK-China climate dialogue. The first summit will take place in London later this year. China’s minister of ecology and environment, Huang Runqiu, is expected to attend.

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We’re unplugging the monitors of the Earth’s vital signs.

Electricity demand is soaring and gas-burning power plants are in short supply. The renewable industry sees an opening — even if Washington is souring on green energy.

Rising Tide campaigners were arrested at Newcastle’s coal port in late 2024 after using kayaks and rafts to protest at facility

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More than 100 climate protesters will plead not guilty to offences under New South Wales’s controversial anti-protest laws, with campaigners claiming it could become the largest climate protest defence case in Australia.

Last year, 173 people were arrested after they allegedly entered the Port of Newcastle on kayaks and rafts to blockade the coal port – the largest in the world.

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Six African Penguins at the New England Aquarium in Boston have made a new home on an island designed to address the aches and pains of aging.

The storied group has a remarkable history of daring protests and high-profile blunders. It faces a reckoning in North Dakota.

Researchers use innovative cameras to identify fish species hindering coral reef restoration

Marine scientists in Florida working to help reverse a calamitous decades-long decline in coral reefs caught fishy “porch pirates” in the act with an innovative underwater doorbell-style surveillance camera.

The footage showed that three corallivorous species – redband parrotfish, foureye butterflyfish and stoplight parrotfish – were responsible for eating more than 97% of coral laid as bait by the researchers at an offshore reef near Miami.

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President Trump rallied support for Elon Musk’s car company, but there may not be enough conservatives willing to buy electric cars to make up for the Democrats who now shun Teslas.