Do climate change-related extreme weather events affect public concern, knowledge, and attention to climate change in China? Matching extreme weather events data from the Emergency Events Database with the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey, we first test whether people in prefectures with more extreme weather events consider climate change more damaging and have a better knowledge of it. We find no such associations. Moreover, we collect 2020 data on extreme whether events from local newspapers for five Eastern and Southeastern Chinese provinces and test whether these events increase public attention to climate change, measured by Baidu search volume index. No associations are found. Interestingly, in prefecture-days with more Covid cases, local population conducted more Baidu searches on climate change and the environment, supporting the ‘great reflection’ thesis, i.e., major shocks like the pandemic put a spotlight on fundamental challenges facing the humanity and have gotten us to reassess our priorities.

We studied a 2200-year-old sediment core from Lake Zapovednoye, a small, deep, freshwater lake near the site of the 1908 Tunguska impact event. Analysis of the sediment core for geochemistry, pollen, chironomids, Cladocera, and diatoms revealed traces of climatic fluctuations during the investigated time period during which a cool climate before 1000 CE was replaced by the Medieval Climatic Optimum, the Little Ice Age, and finally the modern warming. An increased content of terrigenous elements was identified at the depth corresponding to ca. 1908 CE. This layer presumably resulted from erosion of the soil cover after the tree fall caused by the Tunguska impact event (the largest recorded in history). For the first time, the reaction of lake biota to an impact event has been detected. Our study has demonstrated that the taxonomic diversity of hydrobionts (chironomids and cladocerans) significantly declined after the catastrophe, probably due to increased turbidity, and recovered in 6–10 years. The pollen and diatom assemblages, however, demonstrated weaker compositional shifts.

This article stresses the need for climate adaptation to better grasp the social dynamics of vulnerability to climate change. It argues that prevailing approaches in the UK have been inattentive to the social determinants of vulnerability for ethnic and racial minorities. The article begins by setting out the ways in which adaptation is understood and interpolated across multiple levels in the policy process, before discussing why prevailing approaches struggle to recognise that certain social dynamics render some populations more vulnerable to the ongoing effects of climate change. Following this, it will focus on domains of housing and health to reinscribe vulnerability in adaptation as a multidimensional concept, something that registers differentiated levels of structured adaptive capacity by focusing on racialised communities. It concludes by elaborating ways forward in climate adaptation planning and action.

Sorghum halepense (L.) Pers. (Johnsongrass), an invasive tallgrass, actively inhabits grassland ecosystems of North America. The grasslands ecoregions of the southern Great Plains are particularly susceptible to S. halepense invasion and dominance because of its preferential growth in continental climate zones coupled with its ability to readily colonize recent disturbances associated with declining livestock grazing and anthropogenic energy and housing development. Controlling S. halepense via chemical or mechanical inputs can reduce plant species’ abundance temporarily, but are typically followed by S. halepense re-establishment. S. halepense does, however, provide high quality forage and appears to withstand the frequent drought and flooding events associated with climate change in southern Great Plains ecosystems. In this review, the benefits and drawbacks of S. halepense in southern Great Plains grassland ecosystems are discussed and areas where research on this species could be expanded are identified.

Education is essential for addressing the global environmental crisis and engaging students through experiential learning is crucial. In physical education, physical literacy offers a holistic approach to sustainable education, with plogging exemplifying this integration. This study investigates the perceptions of Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) students regarding the implementation of plogging in school curricula. Using qualitative interviews with 80 PETE students and analysing responses with NVIVO 12 software, the study reveals mixed feelings about this innovative practice. Participants see plogging as valuable for fostering both physical literacy and environmental awareness. However, concerns about feasibility include the need for institutional support, curriculum flexibility and community involvement. These findings highlight the potential of plogging to enhance educational programmes by combining physical activity with environmental stewardship. The results can inform the development of future educational strategies that integrate plogging to promote sustainability and holistic student development.

This article discusses the history and the prospects of the climate change negotiations and seeks to show that they are structurally and systematically disadvantageous to the countries and the peoples of the Third World/Global South. The article uses the TWAIL approach to discuss the North-South divide and the differing approaches to climate justice. The article then discusses the history of climate change negotiations, in particular, climate finance and loss and damage, and shows that modes of these negotiations have been disadvantageous to the Third World and are unlikely to fulfil their aspirations. The article highlights the need for incorporating certain principles of fairness, not just in substantive law, but also in how negotiations are conducted. It concludes with thoughts on what these principles of fairness may look like, and the role international and domestic courts can play in evolving them.

Climate change exacerbates existing risks and vulnerabilities for people globally, and migration is a longstanding adaptation response to climate risk. The mechanisms through which climate change shapes human mobility are complex, however, and gaps in data and knowledge persist. In response to these gaps, the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Predictive Analytics, Human Mobility, and Urbanization Project employed a hybrid approach that combined predictive analytics with participatory foresight to explore climate change-related mobility in Pakistan and Viet Nam from 2020 to 2050. Focusing on Karachi and Ho Chi Minh City, the project estimated temporal and spatial mobility patterns under different climate change scenarios and evaluated the impact of such in-migration across key social, political, economic, and environmental domains. Findings indicate that net migration into these cities could significantly increase under extreme climate scenarios, highlighting both the complex spatial patterns of population change and the potential for anticipatory policies to mitigate these impacts. While extensive research exists on foresight methods and theory, process reflections are underrepresented. The innovative approach employed within this project offers valuable insights on foresight exercise design choices and their implications for effective stakeholder engagement, as well as the applicability and transferability of insights in support of policymaking. Beyond substantive findings, this paper offers a critical reflection on the methodological alignment of data-driven and participatory foresight with the aim of anticipatory policy ideation, seeking to contribute to the enhanced effectiveness of foresight practices.

An attractive way to address both the climate crisis and the problem of global inequality is to tax rich countries, individuals and businesses, who are responsible for the greater part of carbon emissions, and redistribute the proceeds to create carbon-neutral infrastructure and address human needs through state action (see Raworth 2017 Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Penguin Random House; Gough 2017 Heat, Need and Human Greed, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.). However the dominant value framework in which ideas about wealth, need, and redistribution are embedded centres on deservingness. This largely justifies existing poverty and wealth-holdings, making redistribution within and beyond the rich countries of the global North hard to achieve. Two developments – the ‘deliberative wave’ of citizen participation in government, and the impact of crises in nurturing prosocial values – point to a rapid and sustained value shift. This paper reviews and analyses evidence to consider the practical politics of oughnut economics.

As societies grapple with mitigating or adapting to climate change, law plays a prominent role in the social relations that constitute a response. In this essay, we briefly review of the many different perspectives on law and climate change offered by the authors in this special issue of Law and Society Review. From transnational human rights activism to constitutional litigation to local practices and all around the globe, both the powerful and the marginalized draw on legal institutions and actors in multiple arenas and at multiple scales to address the consequences of climate change. Together, these articles show that law is not confined to courtrooms or judicial systems or regulations; rather, law offers both limitations and opportunities in the ongoing struggle over climate change.

As the Arctic warms and growing seasons start to lengthen, governments and producers are speculating about northern “climate-driven agricultural frontiers” as a potential solution to food insecurity. One of the central ecological factors in northern spaces, however, is permafrost (perennial frozen ground), which can drive cascading environmental changes upon thaw. Considering the land requirements for expanded agriculture and the unique challenges of northern farming, national and subnational governments are grappling with and facilitating this speculative boom in different ways. Analysing agricultural land use policy instruments from the US State of Alaska and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in Russia, this paper investigates if and how permafrost factors into their legal frameworks and what impacts this has on agricultural development, conservation, and food security. Alaska and the Republic of Sakha were chosen for reasons including both having at least 100 years of agricultural history on permafrost soils, both containing extensive amounts of permafrost within their landmasses and both containing permafrost that is ice-rich. Comparing legal texts as indicative of state capacities and strategies to govern, the paper finds that the two regions diverge in how they understand and regulate permafrost, and suggests that these approaches could benefit from one another. Bringing together geoclimatic and sociocultural concerns to problematise static policy divisions, this paper gestures to a path forward wherein subnational policy can balance needs for food, environmental, and cultural security in the North.

The present contribution seeks to provide an empirical overview of how the amended internal review mechanism established under the EU Aarhus Regulation is currently being deployed by civil society organizations to mobilize EU climate change law. This Article argues that the 2021 reform of the Aarhus Regulation has broadened the legal opportunity structure available to environmental organizations, which can now challenge a much broader set of EU administrative acts. However, this contribution holds that the internal review mechanism is being used strategically by environmental NGOs with the intention to contest - even before the EU judiciary - not only EU administrative acts, but also broader policy arrangements, representing the legal infrastructure of the EU ecological transition. In this regard, the Aarhus internal review mechanism can now be considered a real scientific dispute settlement forum, where NGOs and EU institutions can confront each other and disagree on the way scientific evidence is taken into account in the EU policymaking. Finally, the new specific features of the internal review mechanism are truly empowering only those organizations owning the necessary legal and technical expertise, allowing such NGOs to act as credible scientific interlocutors of the EU institutions on behalf of the wider public.

The stratigraphic record of the Early Holocene in the Nebraska Sand Hills suggests dry climatic conditions and periods of sustained aeolian activity, which resulted in several well-documented instances of sand dunes blocking river drainages in the western Sand Hills. Here, we present evidence that drainage blockage by migrating sand dunes also occurred in the central Sand Hills, where precipitation is higher and dune morphology differs. The South Fork Dismal River valley contains a sequence of aeolian, alluvial, and lacustrine sediments that record a gradual rise of the local water table following a sand dune blockage of the river valley around 11,000 years ago. After the initial development of a wetland, a lake formed and persisted for at least 2000 years. Increased groundwater discharge due to a warm, moist climate in the region after 6500 years ago likely caused the breaching of the dune dam and eventually resulted in the decline of the local water table. Through a careful examination of the intricate relationships between ground water, surface water, and sand movement in a dune field setting, we discuss the hydrologic system's complex response to climate change. We use diatoms to reconstruct the lacustrine environment and optically stimulated luminescence and radiocarbon dating to provide chronological control, based on a careful evaluation of the strengths and limitations of each method in varied depositional environments.

Climate change is to a large extent a collective action problem, but many believe that individual action is also required. But what if no individual contribution to climate change is necessary nor sufficient to cause climate change-induced harms? This issue is known as the problem of inconsequentialism. It is particularly problematic for act consequentialism because the theory does not seem to judge such inconsequential contributions negatively. In this paper, we apply Henry Sidgwick's idea of esoteric morality to climate change and assess whether what we call a climate esoteric morality could help to deal with the problem of inconsequentialism from an act consequentialist perspective. Consequentialists ought then to promote what we call nonconsequentialist faux principles; exaggerate existing consequentialist principles that pro tanto forbid contributing to climate change whenever strictly consequentialist principles fail to do so; and refrain from criticising nonconsequentialist principles that forbid contributing to climate change.