Comment

Antifungal resistance is a growing crisis affecting human health and agriculture that could be accelerated by global change. We call for a One Health research agenda to systematically investigate environmental drivers and inform policy to mitigate the potential of global environmental change in fuelling antifungal resistance.

Although the latest round of Global Plastics Treaty negotiations ended without agreement, the process has mobilized research, funding, and public engagement. Rather than waiting for an agreement, governments and communities should sustain momentum and build readiness for a future treaty through coordinated national planning, ambitious policies, and local initiatives.

As water-quality challenges intensify, the widely used Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season (WRTDS) method offers an adaptable and practical framework for global water-quality science and management.

Natural CO₂ removal is increasingly being claimed as anthropogenic climate mitigation. This misrepresentation is already prevalent for forests and coastal ecosystems; there is now the risk of the error reoccurring for open-ocean CO₂ uptake via the biological carbon pump.

Sea surface temperature response patterns to persistent greenhouse gas forcing are fundamentally nonlinear, contributing to uncertainties in long-term climate projections. A nonlinear framework is required for evaluating future climate changes under greenhouse warming.

Global lake research is skewed toward economically and socially developed regions, overlooking remote areas. Enhancing resilience and fostering synergistic approaches could help redress these inequities.

Negotiations for the Global Plastics Treaty are yet to reach an agreement owing to structural challenges and voting deadlocks. To move forwards, we need clear and comprehensive definitions of plastic pollution through its entire lifecycle, efforts to resolve procedural deadlocks and coordinated action from ambitious countries.

Fieldwork is integral to geoscience but can come with risks that increase for fieldworkers who are pregnant. Consultation with medical staff and completion of risk assessments are essential steps, but pregnant individuals also benefit from supportive colleagues, reasonable accommodations, and the freedom to adapt plans as pregnancy progresses.

Antimicrobial pollution in Africa is escalating rapidly, threatening ecosystems and human health. Naturally occurring minerals, flora and microbial communities can support cost-effective and environmentally sustainable strategies to address this crisis and help achieve relevant Sustainable Development Goals.

This paper is a call to action. By publishing concurrently across journals like an emergency bulletin, we are not merely making a plea for awareness about climate change. Instead, we are demanding immediate, tangible steps that harness the power of microbiology and the expertise of researchers and policymakers to safeguard the planet for future generations.

Construction and demolition waste is the most substantial waste stream in developed countries, prompting policymakers to enhance circularity, recycling and recovery rates. While strategies that simplify deconstruction and promote material reuse are important, prioritizing architectural beauty offers a compelling solution to extend the lifespan of buildings, reduce construction waste and enrich urban environments.

Cooking with electric rather than solid-fuel stoves can reduce carbon emissions and indoor air pollution, offering climate and health co-benefits. To make electric cooking a viable clean fuel alternative for energy-poor communities, energy infrastructure and policies need redesigning to ensure reliable, safe and affordable supply.

Since 2001, the IPCC has utilized ‘burning embers’ to visualize risk at different levels of anthropogenic warming. An ethnoclimatological approach offers an opportunity to expand these figures, aligning the assessment of risk with the lived realities of vulnerable populations.

Quantifying progress towards sustainability goals in food systems requires a universal, threshold-based Food Sustainability Index. Integrating artificial intelligence, remote sensing and empirical observations with system dynamics modelling can help guide sustainable transformations.

Geosciences are one of the least gender-diverse fields, with women representing ~33% and ~39% of those employed in the USA and UK, respectively. Institutionalized and incentivized culturally responsive mentorship through establishment of career investors offers an accelerated path toward transforming geoscience culture and leadership.

Using carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) for carbon removal is crucial to climate policy, but implementation at scale is at risk owing to political obstacles. Climate policies must avoid relying on empty promises of CCS for carbon removal without necessary financial resourcing and support emissions reductions separately from carbon removal.

Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) will be an essential part of the energy transition. Over 45 pilot projects are underway to reduce the technical and regulatory risks of UHS, but negative perceptions must be addressed to ensure that hydrogen’s role in achieving net zero targets can be realized.

A loss and damage (L&D) fund has been established to support particularly vulnerable developing countries. L&D funding needs, entitlements and necessary contributions can be quantified using climate economics coupled with historical responsibility principles; for the year 2025, total L&D funding needs are estimated to be US $395 [128–937] billion.

Growing awareness of environmental risks and mounting regulatory and consumer pressure have driven unprecedented demand for environmental science expertise in the corporate sector. Recruiting skilled individuals with academic backgrounds and fostering collaboration among businesses, research institutions, universities and environmental professionals are vital for enhancing environmental knowledge and capability in companies.

Antarctica and the Southern Ocean provide numerous ecosystem services that benefit people globally, but many are ‘invisible’ to markets and to some decision makers. A subset of these services — Antarctic tourism, commercial fisheries, and a suite of inter-related regulating services — are conservatively valued at ~US $180 billion annually, highlighting their importance.