As Frontiers’ CEO, Kamila Markram set out ambitions for an Open Science Charter to make climate change research freely available worldwide, Ambassador Guilherme de Aguiar Patriota confirmed President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s “personal decision” to host COP30 in Belém at the COP 30 in the Amazon: Shaping Our Planetary Future event on 23 January at the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Annual Meeting.

24.January 2025/Kiel. How can seagrass help combat climate change? This question is the focus of the new research project ZOBLUC (“Zostera marina as a Blue Carbon Sink in the Baltic Sea”), which now starts under the leadership of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. The project aims to investigate the role of seagrass meadows as carbon sinks and to develop recommendations for their protection. Funded with around €6 million as part of the Natural Climate Protection Action Programme (ANK) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUV) and the Ministry for Energy Conversion, Climate Protection, Environment and Nature of the State of Schleswig-Holstein (MEKUN), the project will run until September 2030.

Battery-powered electric vehicles are now more reliable and can match the lifespans of traditional cars and vans with petrol and diesel engines. 

Sockeye salmon raised through land-based aquaculture using the groundbreaking Third Water™ technology have reached the shipping stage, marking a world-first in business-based commercial farming of this species. A press conference held on July 20, 2024, in Fukushima City by Ichii, Okayama University of Science (OUS), and NTT East Japan announced this achievement and introduced trial sales starting the next day at Ichii supermarkets. The salmon, cultivated in a 22-ton advanced land-based facility, grew remarkably from 70g to over 1,200g in just 18 months. This project showcases revolutionary technology addressing global challenges like climate change and extreme weather, offering stable and sustainable fish farming solutions aligned with SDGs. It also leverages ICT solutions to modernize primary industries and holds potential for global expansion. The tasting event highlighted the high quality of the salmon, drawing significant media and consumer interest.

While climate change is likely to present significant challenges to agriculture in coming decades, it could also mean that crops such as chickpeas, soyabeans and oranges are widely grown across the UK, and home-produced hummus, tofu and marmalade are a common sight on our supermarket shelves by 2080.

A new study led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) in collaboration with the University of East Anglia (UEA) predicts that future warmer temperatures in this country would be suitable for a variety of produce such as oranges, chickpeas and okra that are traditionally grown in warmer parts of the world.

Reforestation is a win-win for climate and wildlife, but large-scale afforestation and bioenergy cropping may do more harm than good, according to a new study of land-based climate mitigation strategies (LBMS) for over 14,000 species. The findings emphasize the need to ensure well-intentioned climate action does not exacerbate biodiversity loss. While reducing greenhouse gas emissions is critical, increasing atmospheric carbon removal is equally essential to effectively combat climate change. LBMS considered among the most scalable and nature-based carbon removal solutions include reforestation (restoring forests in historically forested areas), afforestation (introducing forests in previously unforested areas), and bioenergy cropping for carbon capture and storage. However, these approaches also have the potential to alter vast areas of land and habitat, raising concerns about their potential impacts on global biodiversity. Jeffrey Smith and colleagues modeled the habitat and climate needs of over 14,234 globally distributed vertebrate species to evaluate these effects. They found that reforestation offers a clear net benefit to global biodiversity by simultaneously mitigating climate change and expanding habitats for numerous species. Conversely, afforestation and bioenergy cropping often harm biodiversity, as their habitat conversion impacts typically outweigh any gains from climate stabilization. Thus, the local habitat disruptions caused by these land-based climate mitigation strategies generally have a more pronounced effect on biodiversity than their global climate benefits. According to the authors, the findings challenge the assumption that LBMS inherently benefit biodiversity by curbing climate change and underscore the importance of integrating local ecological insights into LBMS planning to predict biodiversity outcomes accurately and prevent making the biodiversity crisis worse, while also addressing climate change.