Brazil makes urgent plea for updated climate plans, and other nature and climate news

With the COP30 United Nations climate summit in November fast approaching, host country Brazil has issued an urgent plea for all countries to submit strengthened national plans on the climate.

The UN needs the CO2-cutting plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), by 25 September, to produce a report on progress towards limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Only 28 countries have submitted their plans so far, reports The Guardian, with some of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, including China and the EU, still to produce theirs.

Solar panels in space could cut terrestrial renewable energy needs in Europe by 80% by 2050, according to research.

The study from King’s College London in the UK used a computer model to simulate the continent’s electricity demand, generation and storage and identify the lowest-cost option for its energy needs.

It found that a space-based solar system, designed by NASA, that uses mirror-like reflectors to collect sunlight in orbit which is then converted to electricity on Earth, could replace the majority of Europe’s land-based renewable energy and reduce the cost of the whole European power system by 15%.

The researchers say that where land-based renewables are intermittent, a space-based system could provide continuous gigawatt-scale power.

Scientists and start-ups are increasingly looking to space to help build a more sustainable future, including for mining critical materials, as seen in the video below.

Spain’s August heatwave was the most intense on record, according to the country’s weather agency. The 10-day period from 8-17 August was the hottest since at least 1950.

The UN has called for water management to be put at the centre of the fight against the climate crisis as World Water Week takes place in Stockholm, Sweden. The meeting is due to highlight the crucial link between water and global warming. As well as being vital for sustainable development and basic human survival, a reliable water supply is also “at the heart of adaptation efforts in an increasingly warming world”, it says.

A rapid fall in the level of the Caspian Sea is affecting ports and oil shipments and threatening catastrophic damage on sturgeon and seal populations, Azerbaijani officials have said. The country says that the sea has been getting shallower for decades, but recent figures show the trend is accelerating.

Scientists have developed a “superfood” for honeybees that could protect the creatures in the face of habitat loss and the climate crisis. The supplement is designed to give the bees ­– vital to pollinating major global crops – all of the nutrients they need to survive. Colonies that ate it during trials had up to 15 times more baby bees that grew to adulthood.

The climate crisis is pushing some winemakers to blend wines from different years to create a more consistent product, the BBC reports. A small but growing number of wineries are releasing non-vintage bottles as extreme weather affects grape harvests.

Researchers are analyzing mud from the Antarctic seabed to understand how human activity, including industrial whaling, has affected the region and the rest of the planet. Their work is part of a global effort to examine the relationship between the ocean and the climate.

Batteries are a vital component of the energy transition, but they have their limits. Green molecules such as hydrogen, ammonia and methanol can help, serving as long-duration energy storage and helping to decarbonize sectors that require high-heat, energy-dense storage or chemical feedstocks.

The recent UN negotiations to end plastic pollution may have concluded without agreement, but we still need materials, infrastructure and policies that will move us towards a circular economy. To succeed, policies must include solutions that are operational today, scalable tomorrow and adaptable across geographies. Polylactic acid, or PLA, is one such solution.