The future remains bleak for corals – but not all reefs are doomed

 

Christopher Cornwall, CC BY-NC-ND

Christopher Cornwall, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Orlando Timmerman, University of Cambridge

A recent report on global tipping points warned that coral reefs face widespread dieback and have reached a point from which they cannot recover.

But in our new research, we show this might not be the case for some reefs if corals can gain tolerance to rising temperatures, or if we can cut greenhouse gas emissions and restore reefs with heat-tolerant corals at scale.

Nevertheless, the outlook likely remains bleak.

 

All coral reefs are under threat but some may be more tolerant to warming waters. Christopher Cornwall, CC BY-NC-ND

Coral reefs provide habitat for thousands of other species in tropical oceans. They deliver economic value through fisheries and tourism and provide shoreline protection from storm surges and extreme weather by dampening the impact of waves.

However, coral reefs are vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Our study combines previously published assessments of climate impacts on different coral reefs and reviews the scientific consensus to examine how long reef structures could persist as climate change intensifies.

Ocean warming, acidification, darkening and deoxygenation all threaten the persistence of coral reefs. Ocean warming brings marine heatwaves, which are the leading cause of mass coral bleaching that has led to a global decline in coral cover.

Marine heatwaves have already led to a global decline in coral reefs. Christopher Cornwall, CC BY-NC-ND

Corals are animals that house microalgae within their tissues that provide sugar in exchange for nitrogen. When temperatures become too hot, corals expel these symbiotic microalgae, leaving behind white skeletons.

Ocean acidification reduces the ability of corals to build their skeletons through a process called calcification. Warming, darkening and deoxygenation can also reduce calcification.

When corals expel their symbiotic algae, all that remains are bleached skeletons. Chris Perry, CC BY-NC-ND

Coral reefs are built by adding calcium carbonate, coming mostly from corals but also coralline algae and other calcareous seaweeds. But as the ocean’s pH (a measure of acidity) is reduced, processes called bio-erosion and dissolution act to remove calcium carbonate.

Our meta-analysis examined how climate change affects the calcification and bio-erosion of coral reefs and we then applied these results to a global data set of reef growth.

There is no scientific consensus on which organisms will build future coral reefs. We explore four most likely scenarios:

1. Present-day extreme reefs represent the future of coral reefs. These are locations where temperatures are already warmer, waters are becoming more acidic and oxygen has dropped to conditions similar to those expected at the end of the century. These reefs are dominated by coralline algae and slow-growing heat-resistant corals.

Some reefs already experience conditions expected at the end of the century. Steeve Comeau, CC BY-NC-ND

2. Presently degraded reefs take over future reefs. These reefs are dominated by bio-eroders such as sponges and sea urchins and have low coral cover.

3. Corals can gain heat tolerance to an extent that keeps pace with low to moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Under these scenarios, only about 36% of global corals would be lost and there would be a moderate reduction in growth. These heat-tolerant reefs are dominated by faster growing corals with symbiotic microalgae that can evolve heat tolerance.

4. Reefs where restoration practices include using heat-tolerant corals that can then disperse to other regions. These restored reefs would have lower coral cover in remote regions lacking restoration or with unsuccessful restoration practices. This kind of reef restoration would need to cover half of global coral reefs to maintain net growth – an unlikely scenario.

We found coral reefs transition to net erosion under all scenarios, even under low to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, meaning they are dissolving or being eaten faster than they can grow. Only reefs with heat-tolerant corals could prevent this from occurring.

The next step for the scientific community is to determine which reefs can persist in the future using global efforts to combine information. The major issues is that we are missing measurements from large parts of the Pacific, and we do not know how deoxygenation or coastal darkening will impact coral reefs. The processes of reef bioerosion and dissolution are also poorly described.

Although the climate has been altered to the point of threatening the future survival of coral reefs, their fate is not doomed yet if we act now.

Another question is how long reef structures will persist after living corals are removed. We do not have an answer yet. It will take global efforts to rapidly obtain these measurements to better manage and protect coral reefs before climate change intensifies.

It is up to governments everywhere, including New Zealand, to better support these initiatives before it is too late.

Christopher Cornwall, Lecturer in Marine Biology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Orlando Timmerman, Doctoral Candidate in Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→March 16, 2026

Microbes in Antarctica survive the freezing and dark winter by living on air

Ry Holland, Monash University

Winter in Antarctica is long and dark. Temperatures remain well below freezing. In many places, the Sun sets in April and does not rise above the horizon again until August. Without sunlight, photosynthetic life such as plants, mosses and algae cannot make energy.

But that’s not to say all life stops.

In a new study published in The ISME Journal, my colleagues and I show that Antarctic microbes make energy from the air at temperatures as low as –20°C. This finding improves our understanding of how life survives at temperature extremes in Antarctica – and how climate change will affect this important process.

How to make energy from air

In 2017, scientists showed that a large number of Antarctic microbes can generate energy from atmospheric gases present at very low concentrations.

This process is called “aerotrophy”. By using enzymes that are very finely tuned to “sniff out” the hydrogen and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, these microbes have found a way to make energy from the air itself – a huge advantage in Antarctica’s nutrient-poor desert soils.

What remained unknown until now was the temperature limits of this process. Could aerotrophy be a way to power the continent’s soil communities through the winter?

Taking the lab down south

Measuring how quickly these microbes consume such a small amount of fuel can be difficult.

From 2022–24, we collected surface soil samples from different areas across East Antarctica and analysed them in our lab.

We measured how quickly they can use the atmospheric gases. We also extracted all the DNA from the soil microbes and sequenced it. This tells us what microbes are present, what genes they have, and what they are capable of using as energy sources.

We showed aerotrophy happening in the lab at representative summer (4°C) and winter (–20°C) temperatures. This means hydrogen and carbon monoxide are a viable food source not just over the summer months, but year-round. What was even more surprising though, was the upper temperature limit.

Soil temperatures in Antarctica rarely rise above 20°C. Yet we found microbes in these soils that continued to generate energy from hydrogen up to a staggering 75°C. It seems as though microbes in Antarctic soils are well adapted to the continent’s cold temperatures, but not restricted to them. It’s a bit like seeing a penguin thrive in a tropical jungle.

We also wanted to see this process occurring in Antarctica itself, so two years ago we brought the lab down south. We collected fresh soil samples, sealed them in the glass vials, and took gas samples.

For the first time, it was clear that under real-world conditions these soil microbes were still munching their way through hydrogen.

The primary producers of Antarctica

DNA sequencing has showed us that the vast majority of microbes in Antarctic soils encode the genes to gain energy from hydrogen. Many of these bacteria also have genes to take carbon from the atmosphere.

These aerotrophs are “primary producers”, generating new biomass from the air itself.

In most land-based ecosystems, photosynthesis is thought to be the bottom of the food chain. Photosynthesis takes energy from sunlight and carbon from the atmosphere and turns it into yummy organic compounds.

It’s what makes plants grow. Plants are primary producers that are eaten by herbivores, which are then eaten by carnivores.

In Antarctica’s desert soils, photosynthesis is relatively rare. Instead, we hypothesise that aerotrophy fulfils the primary producer role in many places.

This makes sense because, unlike sunlight-dependent photosythesis, we now know that aerotrophy can happen year-round. Another benefit is that it doesn’t require liquid water, whereas photosynthesis does.

Hydrogen in a heating world

Aerotrophy clearly has an important role in Antarctic ecosystems. So next, we wanted to determine how global warming might affect this process.

Under low-emissions scenarios, we predict a 4% increase in how quickly aerotrophs use atmospheric hydrogen. Under very high-emissions scenarios, this increase rises to 35%. The numbers are similar for carbon monoxide.

Although hydrogen isn’t a greenhouse gas itself, it is important because it affects how long some greenhouse gases, including methane, hang around in the atmosphere.

Soils (including the microbes that live in them) are responsible for 82% of all hydrogen consumed on Earth globally. In other words, they are a hydrogen sink. This is a crucial component in the global hydrogen cycle.

There are a lot of factors that determine how microorganisms will respond to climate change. Temperature is just one of them. This study is an important piece of the puzzle as scientists figure out how resilient Antarctica’s unique microbal ecosystems are.

Ry Holland, Research Fellow in Microbial Ecology, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→March 12, 2026

Planting Billions of Trees Turned Barren Desert into a Carbon Sink That Lowers CO2

A mixed-species section of the Green Great Wall – Credit: 中国新闻网 CC 3.0. BY

China’s multi-decade long, successful effort to plant a ring of trees around one of the world’s most hostile deserts has sprouted an unexpected benefit to humanity.

Along with protecting the nation’s grasslands and agriculture from the spreading sands of the dismal Taklamakan Desert, the giant ring of trees has turned previous unproductive land into a carbon sink that draws CO2 out of the atmosphere.

It’s thought, and some isolated research has indeed demonstrated, that humans can prevent the worst effects of a rise in average global temperatures by planting trees to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere.

This strategy has limits, however, when viewed on a global scale. Atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise, while there is a limit in the amount of land that can be turned over to forests.

One-third of our planet is covered in deserts, where vegetation is sparse or absent, and rainfall is scarce, yet despite their vast acreage they collectively hold less than one-tenth of the world’s carbon stock, or the amount of carbon that is held underground.

A study conducted by NASA and California Technical Institute (Caltech) has used satellite data to demonstrate that the “sea of death” as the Taklamakan Desert was called in antiquity, could be utilized to store carbon and reduce the greenhouse effect.

The Taklamakan Desert. Credit: NASA World Wind 1.4.

Starting in 1978, China’s Three-North Shelter Belt program aimed to plant trees along the borders of the great Taklamakan to stop sandstorms from ruining adjacent pasture and agriculture land. As the world’s single farthest point from any ocean, the Taklamakan is one of the driest and most hostile landscapes on our planet.

The massive Himalayas rise to the south and east, the Pamirs to the southwest, and a pair of mountains known as the Tian Shan and the Altai to the west, leaving landscape completely isolated from moisture.

66 billion trees have been planted by estimates since the start of the Shelter Belt program, which finished in 2024. Monikered the “Green Great Wall,” this incredible increase in greenery has raised average rainfall by several millimeters, resulting in a natural growth of foliage during the wet season that boosts photosynthesis along the tree line, leading to greater degrees of sequestration.

“We found, for the first time, that human-led intervention can effectively enhance carbon sequestration in even the most extreme arid landscapes, demonstrating the potential to transform a desert into a carbon sink and halt desertification,” study co-author Yuk Yung, a professor of planetary science at Caltech and a senior research scientist in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Live Science in an email.

By precise numbers, it has reduced the average carbon content in the desert air from 416 parts per million to 413 ppm. Parts per million is used as a measurement for the greenhouse effect. Worldwide, the number is 429.3. It was 350 in before the advent of industrialization.If more shelter belt-style tree planting efforts could be used to reclaim desert landscapes, it could open vast areas to absorbing carbon. With little to no vegetation, deserts in their natural state have precious little ability to do so. Planting Billions of Trees Turned Barren Desert into a Carbon Sink That Lowers CO2

Read More........→March 10, 2026

Heat with no end: climate model sets out an unbearable future for parts of Africa

Luis Graterol/Unsplash

Oluwafemi E. Adeyeri, Australian National University

People often think of a heatwave as a temporary event, a brutal week of sun that eventually breaks with a cool breeze. But as the climate changes globally, in parts of Africa, that level of heat is becoming a permanent part of the weather.

Research shows Africa’s exposure to dangerous heat is rising rapidly. Until now, estimating how severe this heat would become was challenging. This was because many widely used global climate models struggled to capture the local factors that shape heat in Africa’s diverse climate zones and habitats (humid tropics, dry savannas and rapidly changing agricultural areas).

It is very important to analyse how these different local factors cause dangerous heat because they all play a role in causing it. For example, rapid changes to the way land is used, such as deforestation, alter soil moisture and humidity. Turning forests into crop land therefore becomes a driver of extreme heat.

We are a team of hydroclimate and land-atmosphere scientists who study heat extremes, water resources, the way land use changes, and hydroclimate risk. We set out to produce reliable, locally relevant projections of future heatwaves. Our team realised that to understand the true heatwave risk in Africa, we had to look down as well as up. It is not only the warming atmosphere from above, it is also the way people are transforming the land below.

To better understand how heat is likely to affect African countries, and to avoid relying on any single climate model, we developed a framework built on four pillars:

• To get the most accurate data, we studied 10 global climate models rather than betting on one model.

• The global climate model outputs were adjusted so they matched observed heatwave patterns (the frequency, duration, magnitude, amplitude, number and timing of heatwaves) and showed the links between temperature, wind, radiation and humidity.

• Artificial intelligence (AI) was used to quantify how much the different drivers of heat (such as temperature, humidity, soil moisture, wind, radiation, land use) contributed to heatwave changes. We also used AI to highlight how these drivers made heat worse when they interacted.

• We compared what would happen in a high-pollution future as opposed to one where governments and industry managed to reduce carbon emissions.

Our research found that by the late 21st century, most regions in Africa will stop having occasional heatwaves and will suffer from extreme heat lasting most of the year. The study shows that by 2065-2100, many parts of Africa (apart from Madagascar) could experience heatwaves on 250-300 days per year.

Some areas, such as the western side of southern Africa, will experience heatwaves that are 12 times as long and frequent as they are now, even if global emissions are reduced. Many heatwaves will last longer than 40 days at a time.

This is not just a slight warming; it is a fundamental change in how people will have to survive on the continent. Once regions in Africa enter a state of almost continuous heatwaves, the human body will have no window of time to recover.

Africa’s heat risk comes from global emissions and local land choices. This means that cutting greenhouse gases matters, and so does protecting and restoring the land’s natural ways of cooling the planet down.

How heat will build dramatically across Africa

In places with intact forests that cool the air, heat and humidity usually remain below a deadly limit. Forests act like natural air-conditioners, preventing fatal heat.

But when forests are cut down and replaced with cropland, the local climate changes. Crops release large amounts of moisture into the air, raising humidity. Heat and moisture build, and the surface heats up faster during the day and stays warmer at night. The land becomes a heat trap. A hot spell that would have been tolerable under forest cover becomes a prolonged, hazardous heatwave.

Rising background heat can affect entire regions. Rural communities, including smallholder farmers, are also highly exposed because they work outdoors and often have limited access to cooling, healthcare or heat-resilient infrastructure.

Heatwaves will affect shack or informal settlement areas more because they generally lack trees and vegetation, and homes built from metal are harder to cool. Without shade, heat will build and linger.

A ‘deadly threshold’ will be reached

Our modelling shows that there is a specific combination of heat and humidity where conditions can intensify heatwaves very quickly, especially in landscapes dominated by cropland.

This is a different kind of heat risk. It is not the familiar “dry heat” driven by parched soils. It is a crop‑driven humidity effect that pushes the atmosphere into a danger zone. For example, in west Africa, extreme heat will peak at about 26.5°C-26.8°C with 74%-75% humidity, producing heatwaves that last 30-35 days.

In southern east Africa, heatwaves will happen even at lower temperatures (23.6°C-23.8°C) and humidity (70%-72%). The danger there is that even small increases in heat or moisture, including those caused by cutting down forests, will make heatwaves more common and longer.

Across all nine African climate regions, our research found that heatwaves will stop being rare events and start becoming a regular part of the year.

The good news is that local land choices will offer immediate protection. Keeping forests, restoring vegetation and using climate-smart farming (where animals and crops are farmed with trees) are not just environmental actions. They are public health defences that weaken the intensity and duration of heatwaves.

What needs to happen next

This research highlights something simple but powerful: a forest is a shield.

This study also shows how planning in cities and in rural areas can keep “nature’s air‑conditioner” working.

Protecting the continent means acting on two fronts. Globally, we need to keep reducing fossil fuel emissions, because even moderate cuts lower the chance of long, near-permanent heatwaves.

Locally, every land-clearing decision matters. Removing natural vegetation adds heat to communities, but keeping forests and cover on the land helps hold temperatures down.

The message is straightforward. Countries cannot control global warming on their own, but they can control how the land responds to it.

Oluwafemi E. Adeyeri, Research Fellow in Climate Science, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→February 18, 2026

Polar bears are adapting to climate change at a genetic level – and it could help them avoid extinction

Alice Godden, University of East Anglia: The Arctic Ocean current is at its warmest in the last 125,000 years, and temperatures continue to rise. Due to these warming temperatures more than two-thirds of polar bears are expected to be extinct by 2050 with total extinction predicted by the end of this century.

But in our new study my colleagues and I found that the changing climate was driving changes in the polar bear genome, potentially allowing them to more readily adapt to warmer habitats. Provided these polar bears can source enough food and breeding partners, this suggests they may potentially survive these new challenging climates.

We discovered a strong link between rising temperatures in south-east Greenland and changes in polar bear DNA. DNA is the instruction book inside every cell, guiding how an organism grows and develops. In processes called transcription and translation, DNA is copied to generate RNA (molecules that reflect gene activity) and can lead to the production of proteins, and copies of transposons (TEs), also known as “jumping genes”, which are mobile pieces of the genome that can move around and influence how other genes work.

In carrying out our recent research we found that there were big differences in the temperatures observed in the north-east, compared with the south-east regions of Greenland. Our team used publicly available polar bear genetic data from a research group at the University of Washington, US, to support our study. This dataset was generated from blood samples collected from polar bears in both northern and south-eastern Greenland.

Our work built on the Washington University study which discovered that this south-eastern population of Greenland polar bears was genetically different to the north-eastern population. South-east bears had migrated from the north and became isolated and separate approximately 200 years ago, it found.

Researchers from Washington had extracted RNA from polar bear blood samples and sequenced it. We used this RNA sequencing to look at RNA expression — the molecules that act like messengers, showing which genes are active, in relation to the climate. This gave us a detailed picture of gene activity, including the behaviour of TEs. Temperatures in Greenland have been closely monitored and recorded by the Danish Meteorological Institute. So we linked this climate data with the RNA data to explore how environmental changes may be influencing polar bear biology.

Does temperature change anything?

From our analysis we found that temperatures in the north-east of Greenland were colder and less variable, while south-east temperatures fluctuated and were significantly warmer. The figure below shows our data as well as how temperature varies across Greenland, with warmer and more volatile conditions in the south-east. This creates many challenges and changes to the habitats for the polar bears living in these regions.

In the south-east of Greenland, the ice-sheet margin, which is the edge of the ice sheet and spans 80% of Greenland, is rapidly receding, causing vast ice and habitat loss.

The loss of ice is a substantial problem for the polar bears, as this reduces the availability of hunting platforms to catch seals, leading to isolation and food scarcity. The north-east of Greenland is a vast, flat Arctic tundra, while south-east Greenland is covered by forest tundra (the transitional zone between coniferous forest and Arctic tundra). The south-east climate has high levels of rain, wind, and steep coastal mountains.

Temperature across Greenland and bear locations

Author data visualisation using temperature data from the Danish Meteorological Institute. Locations of bears in south-east (red icons) and north-east (blue icons). CC BY-NC-ND

How climate is changing polar bear DNA

Over time the DNA sequence can slowly change and evolve, but environmental stress, such as warmer climate, can accelerate this process.

TEs are like puzzle pieces that can rearrange themselves, sometimes helping animals adapt to new environments. In the polar bear genome approximately 38.1% of the genome is made up of TEs. TEs come in many different families and have slightly different behaviours, but in essence they all are mobile fragments that can reinsert randomly anywhere in the genome.

In the human genome, 45% is comprised of TEs and in plants it can be over 70%. There are small protective molecules called piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) that can silence the activity of TEs.

Despite this, when an environmental stress is too strong, these protective piRNAs cannot keep up with the invasive actions of TEs. In our work we found that the warmer south-east climate led to a mass mobilisation from these TEs across the polar bear genome, changing its sequence. We also found that these TE sequences appeared younger and more abundant in the south-east bears, with over 1,500 of them “upregulated”, which suggests recent genetic changes that may help bears adapt to rising temperatures.

Some of these elements overlap with genes linked to stress responses and metabolism, hinting at a possible role in coping with climate change. By studying these jumping genes, we uncovered how the polar bear genome adapts and responds, in the shorter term, to environmental stress and warmer climates.

Our research found that some genes linked to heat-stress, ageing and metabolism are behaving differently in the south-east population of polar bears. This suggests they might be adjusting to their warmer conditions. Additionally, we found active jumping genes in parts of the genome that are involved in areas tied to fat processing – important when food is scarce. This could mean that polar bears in the south-east are slowly adapting to eating the rougher plant-based diets that can be found in the warmer regions. Northern populations of bears eat mainly fatty seals.

Overall, climate change is reshaping polar bear habitats, leading to genetic changes, with south-eastern bears evolving to survive these new terrains and diets. Future research could include other polar bear populations living in challenging climates. Understanding these genetic changes help researchers see how polar bears might survive in a warming world – and which populations are most at risk.

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Alice Godden, Senior Research Associate, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→December 23, 2025

What our missing ocean float revealed about Antarctica’s melting glaciers

Pete Harmsen, CC BY-ND

Steve Rintoul, CSIRO; Esmee van Wijk, CSIRO; Laura Herraiz Borreguero, CSIRO, and Madelaine Gamble Rosevear, University of Tasmania

Sometimes, we get lucky in science. In this case, an oceanographic float we deployed to do one job ended up drifting away and doing something else entirely.

Equipped with temperature and salinity sensors, our Argo ocean float was supposed to be surveying the ocean around the Totten Glacier, in eastern Antarctica. To our initial disappointment, it rapidly drifted away from this region. But it soon reappeared further west, near ice shelves where no ocean measurements had ever been made.

Drifting in remote and wild seas for two-and-a-half years, the float spent about nine months beneath the massive Denman and Shackleton ice shelves. It survived to send back new data from parts of the ocean that are usually difficult to sample.

Measurements of the ocean beneath ice shelves are crucial to determine how much, and how quickly, Antarctica will contribute to sea-level rise.

Argo floats are autonomous floats used in an international program to measure ocean conditions like temperature and salinity. Peter Harmsen, CC BY-ND

What are Argo ocean floats?

Argo floats are free-floating robotic oceanographic instruments. As they drift, they rise and fall through the ocean to depths of up to 2 kilometres, collecting profiles of temperature and salinity. Every ten days or so they rise to the surface to transmit data to satellites.

These floats have become a mainstay of our global ocean observing system. Given that 90% of the extra heat stored by the planet over the past 50 years is found in the ocean, these measurements provide the best thermometer we have to track Earth’s warming.

Little buoy lost

We deployed the float to measure how much ocean heat was reaching the rapidly changing Totten Glacier, which holds a volume of ice equivalent to 3.5 metres of global sea-level rise. Our previous work had shown enough warm water was reaching the base of the ice shelf to drive the rapid melting.

To our disappointment, the float soon drifted away from Totten. But it reappeared near another ice shelf also currently losing ice mass and potentially at risk of melting further: the Denman Glacier. This holds ice equivalent to 1.5m of global sea-level rise.

The configuration of the Denman Glacier means it could be potentially unstable. But its vulnerability was difficult to assess because few ocean measurements had been made. The data from the float showed that, like Totten Glacier, warm water could reach the cavity beneath the Denman ice shelf.

Our float then disappeared under ice and we feared the worst. But nine months later it surfaced again, having spent that time drifting in the freezing ocean beneath the Denman and Shackleton ice shelves. And it had collected data from places never measured before.

The Denman Glacier in east Antarctica. Pete Harmsen, CC BY-ND

Why measure under ice?

As glaciers flow from the Antarctic continent to the sea, they start to float and form ice shelves. These shelves act like buttresses, resisting the flow of ice from Antarctica to the ocean. But if the giant ice shelves weaken or collapse, more grounded ice flows into the ocean. This causes sea level to rise.

What controls the fate of the Antarctic ice sheet – and therefore the rate of sea-level rise – is how much ocean heat reaches the base of the floating ice shelves. But the processes that cause melting in ice-shelf cavities are very challenging to observe.

Ice shelves can be hundreds or thousands of metres thick. We can drill a hole through the ice and lower oceanographic sensors. But this is expensive and rarely done, so few measurements have been made in ice-shelf cavities.

The Denman and Shackleton glaciers. NASA, CC BY-ND

What the float found

During its nine-month drift beneath the ice shelves, the float collected profiles of temperature and salinity from the seafloor to the base of the shelf every five days. This is the first line of oceanographic measurements beneath an ice shelf in East Antarctica.

There was only one problem: because the float was unable to surface and communicate with the satellite for a GPS fix, we didn’t know where the measurements were made. However, it returned data that provided an important clue. Each time it bumped its head on the ice, we got a measurement of the depth of the ice shelf base. We could compare the float data to satellite measurements to work out the likely path of the float beneath the ice.

These measurements showed the Shackleton ice shelf (the most northerly in East Antarctica) is, for now, not exposed to warm water capable of melting it from below, and therefore less vulnerable.

However, the Denman Glacier is exposed to warm water flowing in beneath the ice shelf and causing the ice to melt. The float showed the Denman is delicately poised: a small increase in the thickness of the layer of warm water would cause even greater melting.

What does this mean?

These new observations confirm the two most significant glaciers (Denman and Totten) draining ice from this part of East Antarctica are both vulnerable to melt caused by warm water reaching the base of the ice shelves.

Between them, these two glaciers hold a huge volume of ice, equivalent to five metres of global sea level rise. The West Antarctic ice sheet is at greater risk of imminent melting, but East Antarctica holds a much larger volume of ice. This means the loss of ice from East Antarctica is crucial to estimating sea level rise.

Both the Denman and Totten glaciers are stabilised in their present position by the slope of the bedrock on which they sit. But if the ice retreated further, they would be in an unstable configuration where further melt was irreversible. Once this process of unstable retreat begins, we are committed. It may take centuries for the full sea-level rise to be realised, but there’s no going back.

In the future, we need an array of floats spanning the entire Antarctic continental shelf to transform our understanding of how ice shelves react to changes in the ocean. This would give us greater certainty in estimating future sea-level rise.

Steve Rintoul, CSIRO Fellow, CSIRO; Esmee van Wijk, Vanwijk, CSIRO; Laura Herraiz Borreguero, Physical oceanographer, CSIRO, and Madelaine Gamble Rosevear, Postdoctoral Fellow in Physical Oceanography, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→December 16, 2025

Volcanic ash plume from Ethiopia moving over North India will not impact AQI: Experts

IANS Photo

New Delhi, (IANS) A massive ash cloud from the Hayli Gubbi volcanic eruption in northern Ethiopia that drifted across the Arabian Sea and reached India on Monday night is now moving over parts of north India, prompting aviation authorities to issue safety guidelines for airlines. However, it is not expected to impact the air quality as the ash cloud is primarily at mid-levels of the atmosphere, experts said on Tuesday.

The eruption, which occurred on Sunday after the long-dormant volcano suddenly became active, released a thick plume that travelled across the Red Sea toward Yemen and Oman before advancing toward the Indian subcontinent.

By 11 p.m. on Monday, the ash plume had entered Indian airspace and was observed over Delhi, with movement expected towards Punjab and Haryana through the night and well into Tuesday.

The unusual atmospheric event led the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to issue a detailed advisory to airlines, urging them to strictly avoid designated volcanic ash–affected areas and flight levels.

Airlines have been asked to modify flight planning, routing, altitude selection, and fuel calculations in accordance with the latest Volcanic Ash Advisories (VAAs).

The DGCA’s guidance comes amid reports of rerouted and delayed flights as aircraft operators attempt to navigate safely around the affected zones.

Volcanic ash poses a serious risk to aviation, especially jet engines, as ash particles can melt inside engines and cause severe damage.

IndiaMetSky Weather posted an explanation of the phenomenon on X, noting that the plume currently contains sulphur dioxide (SO₂) with low to moderate concentrations of volcanic ash.

In its post, IndiaMetSky Weather wrote: “The Ash plume mostly consists of Sulphur Dioxide with low to moderate concentrations of Volcanic Ash. It’s now stretching from Oman–Arabian Sea region into plains of North & Central India. It will not impact AQI levels but it will impact SO₂ levels at #Hills of #Nepal, #Himalayas and adjoining Terai belt of #UttarPradesh as some of the material will bump into the hills and later move into China."

"Low chances of Ashfall over plains but some places may see something. NO IMPACT ON AQI LEVEL AT SURFACE LEVEL AT ANY PLACE IS EXPECTED," the post mentioned.

"Plume will slowly continue to drift over Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan region. Once again this is at middle levels of the atmosphere so there will not be any impact on the surface apart from some delays & changes in flight routes and some particles might fall to the surface (low chances),” it added.

Meteorologists emphasise that the ash cloud is primarily at mid-levels of the atmosphere, meaning it is unlikely to affect surface air quality for most regions in India. However, hills across Nepal, the Himalayas, and Uttar Pradesh’s Terai belt may see higher sulphur dioxide levels as the plume interacts with mountainous terrain.The plume is expected to gradually drift westward and weaken, but authorities continue to monitor its movement closely. Passengers have been advised to check with airlines for updated flight schedules as temporary disruptions may continue until the plume disperses. Volcanic ash plume from Ethiopia moving over North India will not impact AQI: Experts | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com

Read More........→November 25, 2025

TinyML: The Small Technology Tackling the Biggest Climate Challenge

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay | For Representational Purpose Only

Tanveer Singh: As the planet struggles under the weight of 40+ billion metric tons of CO₂ emissions in 2024 alone, and an ever-rising energy demand, the search for smarter, leaner solutions has never been more urgent. There enters the TinyML, where the power of AI meets ultra-low energy computing to drive sustainability at scale.

It may be shocking, but as you are reading this, billions of sensors are tracking the planet’s health – from the air we breathe to the energy we consume. Already, more than 14 billion IoT devices are being used to monitor climate change and are projected to reach a whopping 30 billion by the end of 2030. But the concerning part is that the energy consumed by these devices is around 200 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, which is roughly equivalent to the entire energy consumption of countries like Thailand. To meet this demand, energy is produced through the traditional method of burning fuel, which further emits millions of Carbon footprints annually, that is even more than the lifetime emissions of 4 cars, just to monitor climate change. And therein lies the irony.

Furthermore, the constant transmission of data through these sensors requires millions of dollars for their deployment and maintenance. Like a large-scale smart city as big as New York, IoT networks can cost over $10–15 million per year to operate. This is exactly where TinyML comes as the solution, offering a path that enables IoT devices to process data locally, reducing energy consumption by up to 90% and significantly lowering costs.

Tiny ML bridges the gap between artificial intelligence and embedded systems, allowing machine learning activities even in sensors as small as a grain of sand. It is based on the idea of machine learning that is focused on building machine learning models on low-power devices like microcontrollers, enabling the device to process data instantly and anywhere, without depending on external internet storage to compute it. One clear example is Alexa, which uses TinyML models to send instant responses to the device for processing instead of sending through the cloud (external storage ), which will take a longer time.

Additionally, TinyML improves privacy and data security by running locally and reduces overall operational cost by 50-60% as compared to large ML models working on external storage. Take the example of Google's TinyML image classification that runs directly on devices, keeping images private while cutting storage and cloud costs by over 50%. TinyML can be best understood as having a mini robot in your pocket that can solve problems instantly, instead of always asking a big computer far away for help. It is faster, saves energy, and keeps your information private. When this field is applied to the climate, its efficiency becomes a distinguished factor.

Besides being cost-effective and having higher efficiency, it also helps in tracking air quality to predict natural disasters and, hence, supports the fight against climate change. Tiny ML sensors enable the quick detection of forest fires through heat or smoke detection, and aid in local air and water quality checks, eliminating the need for cloud computing dependency. For instance, Arduino-based air quality sensors are used to measure air quality and provide data on the temperature and humidity of an area. These models can also be used in solar or wind farms to check the performance of the solar cells and windmills through the consumption of energy, which can further help in increasing the efficiency of the farms. For example, Google’s DeepMind AI was successfully used with wind farms in the U.S. to predict wind power output 36 hours in advance, boosting the value of wind energy by around 20%. Interestingly, these sensors can also aid in monitoring birds' and whales' calls or other animals to track migration patterns and population health, as well as because of their small size and working on low power, and hence, they can help researchers to get valuable data on ecosystems without disturbing the wildlife. Moreover, TinyML sensors used in smart grids help in improving energy utilization by constantly monitoring and managing the transport of electricity so that energy is not wasted. Besides this, these devices can help in measuring the water pressure, tidal patterns, and ground movement of an area, and the data from this can be used to detect disasters earlier. For instance, in Japan, Tiny ML sensors placed along coastlines measure tidal waves and ground vibration in real time, which helps authorities to issue faster tsunami and earthquake warnings.

However, while these applications highlight the transformative impact of Tiny ML in tackling climate related problems, the integration also brings forth several challenges that need to be addressed to ensure reliability and scalability. First and foremost is the limitation of hardware, which is that there is limited storage, approximately in kilobytes or 1 to 5 megabytes, to store data compared to traditional models that have memory in gigabytes and terabytes. As a result, small models in TinyML will be less precise than the traditional models, which can be a huge challenge in models that work on reliability, for example, disaster management models. Furthermore, the harsh conditions like weather or wildlife can damage these devices, leading to malfunctioning and increasing the cost of maintenance.

Additionally, even though these devices are cost-effective, deploying billions of devices will still require huge funding, which can limit their production and scalability.

Despite these challenges, the future of TinyML is being shaped by the integration of emerging technologies, large-scale adoption, and the expanding market of AI. The combination of TinyML with the 5 G network, which provides 100 times faster speed than 4 G and the ability to connect over one million devices per square kilometer, can enable the creation of massive, interconnected sensors all over the cities that can provide faster and reliable data. Additionally, integrating it with federated learning- an ML technique that enables multiple devices to train a model together without sharing the raw data - can help in ensuring data privacy and increasing the accuracy of the models. Furthermore, Government and Research institutes are likely to adopt TinyML models in various tasks as they provide a scalable and cost-effective solution, especially in environments with limited resources. For instance, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has explored TinyML to process sensor data directly on satellites, reducing the need for constant communication with Earth.

It won’t be an exaggeration to say that the Tiny ML models have the potential to shape the future of the world. By offering scalable as well as energy-efficient solutions, Tiny ML stands out as the best alternative to tackle the climate change problems. From reducing the CO2 emissions to providing faster processing of data and strengthening the privacy and accuracy of the data, the Tiny ML model can be a changemaker catalyst not only in the world of climate change but in other fields, too. Undoubtedly, Tiny ML paves the way for a future where artificial intelligence works in harmony with the planet.Tanveer Singh, a first-year student at Plaksha University, has been passionate about writing articles and poems since high school. From raising public awareness of new technologies to highlighting environmental and societal issues, he has explored a wide range of themes through his work and aspires to continue making an impact in this space for the long run. TinyML: The Small Technology Tackling the Biggest Climate Challenge | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com

Read More........→November 24, 2025

What are climate tipping points? They sound scary, especially for ice sheets and oceans, but there’s still room for optimism

Pink circles show the systems closest to tipping points. Some would have regional effects, such as loss of coral reefs. Others are global, such as the beginning of the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet. Global Tipping Points Report, CC BY-ND

As the planet warms, it risks crossing catastrophic tipping points: thresholds where Earth systems, such as ice sheets and rain forests, change irreversibly over human lifetimes.

Scientists have long warned that if global temperatures warmed more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared with before the Industrial Revolution, and stayed high, they would increase the risk of passing multiple tipping points. For each of these elements, like the Amazon rain forest or the Greenland ice sheet, hotter temperatures lead to melting ice or drier forests that leave the system more vulnerable to further changes.

Worse, these systems can interact. Freshwater melting from the Greenland ice sheet can weaken ocean currents in the North Atlantic, disrupting air and ocean temperature patterns and marine food chains.

Pink circles show the systems closest to tipping points. Some would have regional effects, such as loss of coral reefs. Others are global, such as the beginning of the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet. Global Tipping Points Report, CC BY-ND

With these warnings in mind, 194 countries a decade ago set 1.5 C as a goal they would try not to cross. Yet in 2024, the planet temporarily breached that threshold.

The term “tipping point” is often used to illustrate these problems, but apocalyptic messages can leave people feeling helpless, wondering if it’s pointless to slam the brakes. As a geoscientist who has studied the ocean and climate for over a decade and recently spent a year on Capitol Hill working on bipartisan climate policy, I still see room for optimism.

It helps to understand what a tipping point is – and what’s known about when each might be reached.

Tipping points are not precise

A tipping point is a metaphor for runaway change. Small changes can push a system out of balance. Once past a threshold, the changes reinforce themselves, amplifying until the system transforms into something new.

Almost as soon as “tipping points” entered the climate science lexicon — following Malcolm Gladwell’s 2000 book, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” — scientists warned the public not to confuse global warming policy benchmarks with precise thresholds.

The scientific reality of tipping points is more complicated than crossing a temperature line. Instead, different elements in the climate system have risks of tipping that increase with each fraction of a degree of warming.

For example, the beginning of a slow collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, which could raise global sea level by about 24 feet (7.4 meters), is one of the most likely tipping elements in a world more than 1.5 C warmer than preindustrial times. Some models place the critical threshold at 1.6 C (2.9 F). More recent simulations estimate runaway conditions at 2.7 C (4.9 F) of warming. Both simulations consider when summer melt will outpace winter snow, but predicting the future is not an exact science.

Gradients show science-based estimates from the Global Tipping Points Report of when some key global or regional climate tipping points are increasingly likely to be reached. Every fraction of a degree increases the likeliness, reflected in the warming color. Global Tipping Points Report 2025, CC BY-ND

Forecasts like these are generated using powerful climate models that simulate how air, oceans, land and ice interact. These virtual laboratories allow scientists to run experiments, increasing the temperature bit by bit to see when each element might tip.

Climate scientist Timothy Lenton first identified climate tipping points in 2008. In 2022, he and his team revisited temperature collapse ranges, integrating over a decade of additional data and more sophisticated computer models.

Their nine core tipping elements include large-scale components of Earth’s climate, such as ice sheets, rain forests and ocean currents. They also simulated thresholds for smaller tipping elements that pack a large punch, including die-offs of coral reefs and widespread thawing of permafrost.

The world may have already passed one tipping point, according to the 2025 Global Tipping Points Report: Corals reefs are dying as marine temperatures rise. Healthy reefs are essential fish nurseries and habitat and also help protect coastlines from storm erosion. Once they die, their structures begin to disintegrate. Vardhan Patankar/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Some tipping elements, such as the East Antarctic ice sheet, aren’t in immediate danger. The ice sheet’s stability is due to its massive size – nearly six times that of the Greenland ice sheet – making it much harder to push out of equilibrium. Model results vary, but they generally place its tipping threshold between 5 C (9 F) and 10 C (18 F) of warming.

Other elements, however, are closer to the edge.

Alarm bells sounding in forests and oceans

In the Amazon, self-perpetuating feedback loops threaten the stability of the Earth’s largest rain forest, an ecosystem that influences global climate. As temperatures rise, drought and wildfire activity increase, killing trees and releasing more carbon into the atmosphere, which in turn makes the forest hotter and drier still.

By 2050, scientists warn, nearly half of the Amazon rain forest could face multiple stressors. That pressure may trigger a tipping point with mass tree die-offs. The once-damp rain forest canopy could shift to a dry savanna for at least several centuries.

Rising temperatures also threaten biodiversity underwater.

The second Global Tipping Points Report, released Oct. 12, 2025, by a team of 160 scientists including Lenton, suggests tropical reefs may have passed a tipping point that will wipe out all but isolated patches.

Coral loss on the Great Barrier Reef. Australian Institute of Marine Science.

Corals rely on algae called zooxanthellae to thrive. Under heat stress, the algae leave their coral homes, draining reefs of nutrition and color. These mass bleaching events can kill corals, stripping the ecosystem of vital biodiversity that millions of people rely on for food and tourism.

Low-latitude reefs have the highest risk of tipping, with the upper threshold at just 1.5 C, the report found. Above this amount of warming, there is a 99% chance that these coral reefs tip past their breaking point.

Similar alarms are ringing for ocean currents, where freshwater ice melt is slowing down a major marine highway that circulates heat, known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC.

The AMOC carries warm water northward from the tropics. In the North Atlantic, as sea ice forms, the surface gets colder and saltier, and this dense water sinks. The sinking action drives the return flow of cold, salty water southward, completing the circulation’s loop. But melting land ice from Greenland threatens the density-driven motor of this ocean conveyor belt by dilution: Fresher water doesn’t sink as easily.

A weaker current could create a feedback loop, slowing the circulation further and leading to a shutdown within a century once it begins, according to one estimate. Like a domino, the climate changes that would accompany an AMOC collapse could worsen drought in the Amazon and accelerate ice loss in the Antarctic.

Questions about closeness of other tipping points

Not all scientists agree that an AMOC or rain forest collapse is close.

In the Amazon, researchers recognize the forest’s changes, but some have questioned whether some of the modeled vegetation data that underpins tipping point concerns is accurate. In the North Atlantic, there are similar concerns about data showing a long-term trend.

The Amazon forest has been losing tree cover to logging, farming, ranching, wildfires and a changing climate. Pink shows areas with greater than 75% tree canopy loss from 2001 to 2024. Blue is tree cover gain from 2000 to 2020. Global Forest Watch, CC BY

Other changes driven by rising global temperatures, like melting permafrost, could be reversed. Permafrost, for example, could refreeze if temperatures drop again.

Risks are too high to ignore

Despite the uncertainty, tipping points are too risky to ignore. Rising temperatures put people and economies around the world at greater risk of dangerous conditions.

But there is still room for preventive actions – every fraction of a degree in warming that humans prevent reduces the risk of runaway climate conditions. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions slows warming and tipping point risks.

Tipping points highlight the stakes, but they also underscore the climate choices humanity can still make to stop the damage.

This article was updated to clarify permafrost discussion.

Alexandra A Phillips, Assistant Teaching Professor in Environmental Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→November 10, 2025

In 2024, the climate crisis worsened in all ways. But we can still limit warming with bold action

The flooded Guadalupe River near Kerrville, Texas, in July 2025. OregonStateUniversity/flickr, CC BY-NC

Thomas Newsome, University of Sydney and William Ripple, Oregon State University

Climate change has been on the world’s radar for decades. Predictions made by scientists at oil giant Exxon in the early 1980s are proving accurate. The damage done by a hotter, more chaotic world is worsening and getting more expensive.

Even so, many countries around the world are failing to meet their emissions targets, with major gaps found even this week between the commitments and actions needed to hold global warming to 1.5°C.

This has put Earth on a dangerous path, as our new report on the state of the climate reveals.

Earth’s vital signs ailing

Last year was the hottest on record. It was also likely the hottest in at least 125,000 years.

Every year, we track 34 of the planet’s vital signs. In 2024, 22 of these indicators were at record levels. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and ocean heat both hit new highs, as did losses of trees to fire. Meat consumption kept rising and fossil fuels consumption reached new heights.

Examples of vital signs, including carbon dioxide emissions, global tree cover loss to fire and energy consumption from different sources. State of the Climate 2025

The consequences of climate inaction are ever more clear. In 2024, the world’s coral reefs suffered the most widespread bleaching ever recorded, affecting roughly 84% of the world’s coral reef area between January 2023 and May 2025.

Greenland and Antarctic ice mass fell to record lows. Deadly and costly disasters surged, including the flooding in Texas which killed at least 135 people while the Los Angeles wildfires have cost more than A$380 billion. Since 2000, global climate-linked disasters have now caused more than $27 trillion in damages.

The flooded Guadalupe River near Kerrville, Texas, in July 2025. OregonStateUniversity/flickr, CC BY-NC

Stories and statistics like this are sadly not new. Many other reports and warnings have been published before we started this annual snapshot in 2020. Therefore, our report this year focuses on three high-impact types of climate action, across energy, nature and food.

Energy

Combined solar and wind consumption set a new record in 2024 but is still 31 times lower than fossil fuel (oil, coal, gas) energy consumption. This is despite the fact renewables are now the cheapest choice for new energy almost everywhere. One reason for this are the ongoing subsidies for fossil fuels.

By 2050, solar and wind energy could supply nearly 70% of global electricity. But this transition requires restricting the influence of the fossil fuel industry and a full phase out of fossil fuel production and use, not the expansion we continue to see globally.

As a result of surging fossil fuel consumption, energy-related emissions rose 1.3% in 2024 and reached an all-time high of 40.8 gigatons (Gt) of carbon dioxide equivalent. In 2024, the greatest fossil fuel greenhouse gas emitters were China (30.7% of total), the United States (12.5%), India (8.0%), the European Union (6.1%), and Russia (5.5%). Together, they accounted for 62.8% of global emissions.

Sadly, much of the rise in fossil fuel electricity generation may be due to hotter temperatures and heat waves.

Although there are concerns over the environmental impacts of renewables, the greater threat to our biodiversity is climate change and biodiversity conservation and mitigation measures can be part of project planning.

Nature

Protecting and restoring ecosystems on land and in the ocean remains one of the most powerful ways to support climate change, and support biodiversity and human well-being.

Protecting and restoring ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, mangroves and peatlands could remove or avoid around 10 Gt of carbon dioxide emissions per year by 2050, which is equivalent to roughly 25% of current annual emissions.

But we must also stop destroying what we have. Global tree cover loss was almost 30 million hectares in 2024, the second highest area on record and a 4.7% increase over 2023. Tropical primary forest losses were particularly large in 2024, with fire-related losses reaching a record high of 3.2 million hectares, up from just 690 thousand hectares in 2023, a 370% increase.

Food

Approximately 30% of food is lost or wasted globally. Reducing food waste could greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions since it accounts for roughly 8–10% of global emissions. Policies supporting plant-rich diets could also help slow climate change, while offering many benefits related to human health, food security, and biodiversity.

The technical mitigation potential associated with switching away from eating meat may be in the order of 0.7–8.0 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2050. This is in part because methane emissions from cows, sheep and other ruminant livestock account for roughly half of all agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Per capita meat consumption hit all-time highs in 2024, and we currently add 500,000 more ruminants per week.

Discarded vegetable waste in Luxembourg. Foerster/wikimedia, CC BY-NC

Creating global change

In our report, we note that social tipping points can trigger climate action. These refer to moments when a small, committed minority triggers a rapid and large-scale shift in social norms, beliefs, or behaviours. Research shows sustained, nonviolent movements and protests involving just a small proportion of a population (about 3.5%) can help trigger transformative change.

Many people underestimate how much support there is globally for climate action. Wikimedia, CC BY-NC

Many people underestimate just how much support there is globally for climate action, with most people believing they are in a minority. This arguably fosters disengagement and isolation. But it also suggests that as awareness grows and people see their values reflected in others, the conditions for social tipping points may be strengthened.

Reaching this positive tipping point will require more than facts and policy. It will take connection, courage, and collective resolve. Climate mitigation strategies are available, cost effective and urgently needed, and we can still limit warming if we act boldly and quickly, but the window is closing.

Thomas Newsome, Associate Professor in Global Ecology, University of Sydney and William Ripple, Distinguished Professor and Director, Trophic Cascades Program, Oregon State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→October 31, 2025

Climate change is a crisis of intergenerational justice. It’s not too late to make it right

Philippa Collin, Western Sydney University; Judith Bessant, RMIT University, and Rob Watts, RMIT University

Climate change is the biggest issue of our time. 2024 marked both the hottest year on record and the highest levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the past two million years.

Global warming increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, bushfires, floods and droughts. These are already affecting young people, who will experience the challenges for more of their lives than older people.

It will also adversely affect those not yet born, creating a crisis of intergenerational justice.

Caught in the changing climate

In 2025, children and young people comprise a third of Australia’s population.

Given their early stage of physiological and cognitive development, children are more vulnerable to climate disasters such as crop failures, river floods and drought.

They are also less able to protect themselves from the associated trauma than most older people.

Under current emissions trajectories, United Nations research warns every child in Australia could be subject to more than four heatwaves a year. It’s estimated more than two million Australian children could be living in areas where heatwaves will last longer than four days.

A recent report found more than one million children and young people in Australia experience a climate disaster or extreme weather event in an “average year”.

Those in remote areas, from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and Indigenous children are more likely to be negatively effected. That’s equivalent to one in six children, and numbers are rising.

Anxiety, frustration and fear

The impact of climate change on young people’s health and wellbeing is also significant. Globally, young people bear the greatest psychological burden associated with the impacts of climate change.

Feelings such as frustration, fear and anxiety related to climate change are compounded by the experience of extreme weather events and associated health impacts.

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Intergenerational inequality is the term on the lips of policymakers in Canberra and beyond. In this four-part series, we’ve asked leading experts what’s making younger generations worse off and how policy could help fix it.

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For young people who live through climate-related disasters, they may experience challenges with education, displacement, housing insecurity and financial difficulties.

All these come on top of other issues. These include increased socioeconomic inequality, rising child poverty, mounting education debt, precarious employment, and lack of access to affordable housing.

This means this generation of young people is likely to be worse off economically than their parents.

Not walking the walk

Some key policy figures understand how climate change is turbo-charging intergenerational unfairness.

Former treasury secretary Ken Henry described the situation as an “intergenerational tragedy”, referring to the ways Australian policymakers are failing to address the changing climate, among other crucial issues.

Even Treasurer Jim Chalmers acknowledged “intergenerational fairness is one of the defining principles of our country”.

Yet, the current responses to the Climate Risk Assessment Report suggest it’s not the highest priority.

Climate change was barely mentioned in the May 2025 federal election. The major parties largely avoided the subject.

It was also concerning that the first major decision of the newly reelected Albanese government was approving an extension to Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project off Western Australia until 2070.

This leaves a legacy to young people of an additional 87 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent every year for many years to come.

Raising young voices

Australia’s children and young people are not stupid. Many worked out early that they could not trust governments.

Since 2018, young people have mobilised hundreds of thousands of other children in protests calling for climate action.

Youth-led organisations in Australia, such as the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, have long led campaigns and strategies to address climate change. They are joined by an increasing range of older allies, from Parents for Climate to the Knitting Nannas to the Country Women’s Association.

Domestically, many young people have turned to strategic climate litigation and collaboration with members of parliament on legislative change. They argue governments have a legal duty of care to prevent the harms of climate change.

Thwarted attempts

Beyond accelerating implementation of the National Adaptation Plan, other legislative innovations will help.

In 2023, young people worked with independent Senator David Pocock to draft legislation addressing these concerns.

This bill required governments to consider the health and wellbeing of children and future generations when deciding on projects that could exacerbate climate change.

It was sent to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee. While all but one of 403 public submissions to the committee supported the bill, in June 2024 the Labor and Coalition members agreed to reject it. They argued it was difficult to quantify notions such as “wellbeing” or “material risk”.

Adding insult to injury, both major parties claimed Australia already had more than adequate environmental laws in place to protect children.

Turning around the Titanic

The Australian parliament may have another opportunity to embed a legislative duty to protect children and secure intergenerational justice. Independent MP Sophie Scamps introduced the Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill in February 2025. As legislation brought before the parliament lapses once an election is called, Scamps is planning to reintroduce the bill in this sitting term.

The bill would introduce a legislative framework to embed the wellbeing of future generations into decision making processes. It would also establish a positive duty and create an independent commissioner for future generations to advocate for Australia’s long-term interests and sustainable practice.

While this bill does not include penalties for breaches of the duty, if passed, it would force the government of the day to consider the rights and interests of current and future generations.

It’s based on similar legislation in Wales, which has worked successfully for a decade.

If nothing else, the Welsh experiment suggests we can take entirely practical steps to promote intergenerational justice, reduce the negative impacts of climate change on young people right now and avert a climate catastrophe threatening our children who are yet to be born.

It may feel like turning around the Titanic, but it must be done.

Philippa Collin, Professor of Political Sociology, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University; Judith Bessant, Distinguished Professor in School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, and Rob Watts, Professor of Social Policy, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→October 23, 2025