Cement is vital in the construction industry, being the glue that holds concrete together.But cement production accounts for around 8% of global CO₂ emissions.Low-carbon alternatives are available and could help to revolutionize the way we build cities to mitigate against climate change. August 22 is Earth Overshoot Day, which marks the date when humanity's demand for ecological resources in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that ...

Emissions from buildings and the construction industry are reducing the chance of reaching the Paris Agreement targets.In 2019, these emissions hit an all-time high.GlobalABC's new Buildings Climate Tracker also showed the annual rate of progress on decarbonising buildings is slowing down. Planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from buildings and construction are jeopardising global goals to keep devastating climate change at bay, a U.N.-backed ...

Along U.S. coastlines, from California to Florida, residents are getting increasingly accustomed to "king tides." These extra-high tides cause flooding and wreak havoc on affected communities. As climate change raises sea levels, they are becoming more extreme. King tides are nothing new for the Marshall Islands, a nation made up of 29 low-lying coral atolls that stretch across more than a million square miles of Pacific Ocean northeast of Austra...

Wind and solar capacity will exceed coal and gas in less than five years, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency.The increase will mean wind and solar will overtake gas capacity in 2023 and coal in 2024.The report also showed how renewables had proved to be resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic, unlike other commodities. Wind and solar capacity will double over the next five years globally and exceed that of both gas and co...

In 2018, a map named after an oceanographer went viral. The so-called Spilhaus projection, in which Earth is viewed from above the South Pole, was designed to show the connected nature of the ocean basins. It is a perspective that comes naturally to those who live in the ocean-dominated southern hemisphere. The Southern Ocean, also called the Antarctic Ocean (or even the Austral ocean), is like no other and best described in superlatives. Storing...

Saturday was the fifth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement – the commitment by almost every country to try to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. It's an ambitious goal, and the clock is ticking. The planet has already warmed by about 1 C since the start of the industrial era. That might not sound like much, but that first degree is changing the planet in profound ways, from more extreme heat waves that put human health ...

As the world warms and the atmosphere becomes increasingly fertilised with carbon dioxide, trees are growing ever faster. But they're also dying younger – and overall, the world's forests may be losing their ability to store carbon. That's the key finding of our new study, published in the journal Nature Communications. In a world without humans, forests would exist in equilibrium, taking roughly as much carbon out of the atmosphere as they lose....

When fish die naturally, their bodies and the carbon they contain sink to the depths of the ocean.Yet when fished, this carbon is released into the atmosphere as CO2.As the world has overlooked the ability of fish to act as a natural carbon sink, scientists now estimate carbon emissions from fishing are 25% higher than previously believed. A fish that dies naturally in the ocean sinks to the depths, taking with it all the carbon it contains. Yet,...

The day Joe Biden becomes president, he can start taking actions that can help slow climate change. The question is whether he can match the magnitude of the challenge. If his administration focuses only on what is politically possible and fails to build a coordinated response that also addresses the social and economic ramifications of both climate change and the U.S. policy response, it is unlikely to succeed. I have spent much of my career wor...

China's national emissions trading scheme (ETS) is expected to eclipse that of the European Union to become the world's largest carbon trading scheme.The scheme is designed to include all major industrial sectors, from construction to power generation.While first mentioned in 2015 ahead of the Paris climate agreement, technical problems have plagued the scheme, delaying it for a further 5 years. China is targeting the launch of a nationwide emiss...