A group of leading marine scientists led by Prof. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg have collaborated to publish a science-policy paper explaining the urgent need for effective “coral reef diplomacy” and international coordination to secure the future of the coral reefs of the Gulf of Aqaba in the Northern Red Sea. This paper explains how these unique reefs are threatened by both a changing climate and other human-induced environmental damage, and why urgent action is needed to ensure their sustainable development and to protect the livelihoods of millions of people.

Food and energy prices are rising, economies in Europe are stretched due to the lack, or potential future lack, of fuels (particularly gas), food (particularly wheat and animal feed), and fertilisers, along with other materials, such as the metals needed for energy transition or other transition-related needs.

Frontiers Policy Labs spoke with Wim Thiery, an associate professor at the University of Brussels, a climate scientist who uses computer models to project how climate extremes will evolve in the future. Dr. Thiery, who was named one of Europe’s “30 Under 30” by Forbes, is a contributing author on two past IPCC reports and his research is featured in the report on climate change impacts that recently came out.

There is a long history of government intervention in energy markets. For both political and economic reasons, countries have always subsidized the production of cheap and abundant fossil energy. Over the last hundred years, the availability of inexpensive fossil-fuel energy has been a hallmark of the growth of most countries—including both the industrial growth of the last century and the information-intensive growth of our current era.

Emphasizing that the goals presented in the Paris Agreement, COP25, Fit for 55, and the upcoming COP26 are extremely ambitious and require urgent action, Vineis expressed the view that mitigating climate change will require a balance between two broad strategies. The first strategy, a big focus of recent agendas, is essentially technological, based on implementing technologies like green hydrogen or nuclear power and, in general, quick shifts towards renewable energy. The second strategy is partially non-technological, harnessing the health-related ‘co-benefits’ of certain societal approaches to climate change mitigation.

Frontiers Evidence Snapshots surveys 350 recent papers, reporting ongoing climate change in the atmosphere, the oceans, the Arctic and Antarctic - and the effects of these changes on sea levels and on so-called extreme events (tropical storms, droughts and floods etc.)