Volume 16 Issue 9, September 2026

Extreme heat events are increasing, and urban adaptation is urgently needed for humans and non-humans to function safely under heat. Here we present a thermal justice framework and highlight how its use facilitates equitable adaptation and minimizes heat-risk displacement.

Informal adaptation can augment or replace formal adaptation with flexible and responsive actions, yet it can also reproduce and intensify existing injustices. We propose justice-oriented co-creation between informal and formal actions as a pathway for effective heat adaptation.

The ‘double materiality’ framework helps guide financial policymakers in assessing the risks of climate change, but masks complex interactions within the financial system. I argue that effective policy requires more clarity on the underlying relationships and the links to specific mandates of different financial policymakers.

Traditional resilience planning for extreme weather focuses on reinforcing municipal boundaries and internal infrastructure. Now, a study demonstrates how a city’s socioeconomic and physical ties to external urban networks act as a critical catalyst for intra-city mobility resilience under extreme rainfall.

Assessing the status of adaptation is important to target support and determine priority gaps. Here I look back on an influential 2021 study that reported a systematic review of evidence of implemented human adaptation and consider how this underscored the imperative for greater policy action and spawned methodological advancements in how to track adaptation progress.

Leading European cities race to reach net-zero emissions, but residual emissions are tied to easier-to-abate sectors and temporary, land-intensive carbon removal for compensation. To keep climate neutrality credible and fair, policy must tighten expectations on cutting emissions and set clear rules for carbon removal and credits.

Tropical forest restoration is widely promoted as a nature-based climate solution, but its potential to restore hydrological functions impaired by deforestation remains unclear. Now, satellite observations show that forest gain can increase evapotranspiration and precipitation more than forest loss reduces them, with prominent asymmetry in South America and Africa.

The authors review ecological novelty—ecological situations with no precedent—arising from climate change. They discuss ecological novelty due to direct and indirect effects of climate change, and due to adaptation and mitigation measures, and explore management options that are against, for or tolerant of ecological novelty.

Adaptation to climate risks requires integrating knowledge across IPCC working groups. This study presents a climate impact taxonomy that connects climatic impact-drivers from Working Group I to representative key risks from Working Group II and provides more direct guidance for risk assessment and adaptation strategies.

Growing extreme weather poses escalating threats to urban functionality. This study shows that higher network centrality and stronger ties to wealthier cities enhance intracity mobility resilience during extreme rainfall, with larger benefits for smaller and poorer cities from targeted investment.

The authors quantify the global emergence of hourly heat extremes (HHEs), highlighting exposure overlooked by daily metrics. HHEs will increase fourfold by the end of the century under high emissions, with low- and middle-income countries, as well as successive generations, facing disproportionate exposure.

Changes in the Earth system may persist long after atmospheric CO₂ levels decline. This study examines ocean acidification and how it will persist in ocean regions globally, with the Arctic identified as the area that experiences relief from acidification the latest under negative emissions.

Assessing 9,809 freshwater fish species globally, this study shows risk to a high proportion of species in the tropics, and severe extremes in non-tropical regions. Under high emissions, gradual warming drives abrupt exposure, with 63% of species facing accelerating thermal fragmentation by 2099.

The influence of fine particulate pollution (PM_2.5) on plant water-use efficiency remains poorly understood. The authors highlight that PM_2.5 exerts a primarily negative effect across scales due to asymmetric effects on photosynthesis and evapotranspiration.

The authors demonstrate asymmetrical impacts of forest gain and loss on evapotranspiration and precipitation: gain increases the processes more than loss reduces them. They highlight a need to better consider hydrological asymmetry in climate models and in planning of forest-based climate solutions.

The authors integrate dendrochronological records with range shifts to show that shifts in montane tree species are tightly linked to tree hydraulic properties. While climate-sensitive species track warming to higher elevations, stress-resistant species expand downslope.

Although many cities have set net-zero targets, there is limited understanding of their residual emissions strategies. An analysis of 103 European cities reveals best practices but also a potential over-reliance on temporary land-based carbon removal and the limited robustness of compensation strategies.

The magnitude and distribution of CO₂ emissions from river transport are poorly constrained. This study finds that global CO₂ emissions from inland vessels were about one-quarter of total vessel emissions, and that emissions were concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere, related to economic activity.

As the Great Barrier Reef reels from successive devastating bleaching events, researchers are working to regenerate small areas with corals selected or manipulated for better heat tolerance.