As health threats from climate change reach unprecedented levels and political backsliding on climate action threatens to stall progress, the 2025 Report of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change issues a fresh clarion call for “all hands on deck” to accelerate and intensify efforts to simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and adapt to climate change.

The worsening consequences of the climate crisis could fatally “derail” climate action, researchers have warned.

By analyzing the devastating floods that affected Emilia-Romagna, Italy, in 2023 and 2024, a team of researchers from CMCC - the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change - describes for the first time how a particular orographic configuration makes certain regions particularly prone to extreme flooding. The “cul-de-sac” effect: where mountains act as a trap for moisture over a confined area for several days, while a stationary cyclone continues to channel humid air, leading to prolonged and intense precipitation. The research shows how these events, which affect other Mediterranean areas with similar orography, could become more frequent in a changing climate, paving the way for new forecasts and improved early warning systems that will help communities better prepare.

Researchers at the University of Kansas have conducted a study based on their building of the Kansas Energy Transition Atlas. The tool gathers wind energy regulations for all of the state's 105 counties, showing what kind of regulations each has, as well as information on transmission lines, turbine height and much more. The study shows how many counties have regs that enable wind development, how many seek to block them and show that agricultural reliance factors into allowing wind in a county, while voting patterns did not factor in to types of regs. The site not only shows how a state with massive wind energy potential handles the issue, but can help guide the nation in energy transition policies, the researchers argue.