Climate in Society – IUCA website

Getting soil nitrogen to growing roots cuts farm pollution

NikkiMorse — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 15:41:24 +0000

Farmers could significantly reduce agricultural emissions by getting the soil’s nitrogen-cycling processes to work together more closely, new research shows.

A new study published in Nature Communications, co-authored by researchers at the University of Reading, found that replacing synthetic fertiliser with organic sources such as manure, crop residues and biochar cut nitrous oxide emissions by an average of 21.8% and ammonia emissions by 40.6%.

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Coal-powered economic growth linked to rising urban air pollution and deaths in India

NikkiMorse — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 15:38:30 +0000

Research led by the University of Oxford has found that rapid economic growth brought major gains in access to electricity and cleaner cooking in India, but growing reliance on coal-fired power has contributed to worsening outdoor air pollution and a sharp rise in urban air-pollution-related deaths. The study has been published today in Nature Cities.

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Pacific voices help shape global climate agenda ahead of COP31 by calling for urgent action to keep 1.5°c within reach

NikkiMorse — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 15:37:44 +0000

A major climate forum that will help shape Pacific nation priorities for the pre-COP31 meeting and global climate negotiations. Pacific climate priorities were the focus at a major international forum weekend, ahead of the official pre-COP31 meeting.

The 1.5°C to Stay Alive forum was held at The University of the South Pacific (USP) Laucala Campus, in Fiji on Saturday, and was hosted by USP in partnership with the COP Universities Alliance

Dr Wesley Morgan, from UNSW ICRR, the lead organiser of the forum, says it will provide an important opportunity for Pacific experts and leaders to explain what they want to see from COP31, later this year.

Find Out More – University of New South Wales report

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Climate change: Laws and policies must change to prevent future statelessness, says Australian and UN joint report

NikkiMorse — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 15:37:00 +0000

Australia and other nations should amend laws and practices to deal with millions of people who are expected to move because of climate-related hazards, according to a new report by the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The report, Global Recommendations on Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change, was written by Associate Professor Govil, of the Peter McMullin Centre at Melbourne Law School, with UNHCR’s Anne Laakko and Michelle Yonetani.

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‘Climate Kids’ returns, answering more children’s questions about climate change

NikkiMorse — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 13:31:52 +0000

Primary school children are anxious about climate change and keen to understand what it means – and the YouTube video series Climate Kids has returned with a second season to answer more of their questions.

Fellow creator, climate scientist and science communicator, Dr Linden Ashcroft, from the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne said said: “As parents, we looked around for engaging, up-to-date, age-appropriate climate explainers that would answer children’s questions. But we realised there was a gap. So, we created Climate Kids.”

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Climate crisis needs justice and democracy in the lead, says new professor David Schlosberg

NikkiMorse — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 13:14:45 +0000

Environmental political theorist David Schlosberg joined the University of Helsinki in September, holding a joint professorship on environmental politics between two faculties.

He arrived in Helsinki after three decades of work in the United States, the United Kingdom and, for the last 15 years, Australia. Schlosberg describes himself as part environmental political theorist, part empirical environmental social scientist. He is best known for a framework for understanding environmental and climate justice that he first published more than 25 years ago.

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UCT study calls for climate services rooted in local knowledge

NikkiMorse — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 10:53:22 +0000

A new study led by Dr Petra Holden of the African Climate & Development Initiative (ACDI) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) compared priorities for strengthening existing climate services for nature-based solutions in sub-Saharan Africa with priorities for entirely new climate services. A clear finding was the strong demand for meaningful integration of scientific knowledge with indigenous and local knowledge in climate-service co-production.

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Most Australians doubt health system is ready for climate-related emergencies, national survey finds

NikkiMorse — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:59:13 +0000

Most Australians recognise climate change as a serious national issue, and many believe it poses a serious risk to their personal health, according to major new research led by the Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI) at Macquarie University published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

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Aluta-Rore Elevates Women’s Indigenous Knowledge in Pacific Climate Resilience

NikkiMorse — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 16:01:02 +0000

For generations, women across the Pacific have stood as the unsung architects of food security. Through traditional gardening, reef gleaning, fishing, and food preservation, their inherited ecological wisdom has sustained households through shifting weather patterns, climate-related issues, and socio-economic pressures.

This philosophy forms the bedrock of Alice Clara Aluta-Rore’s academic mission as a Doctor of Philosophy candidate in Pacific Studies at The University of the South Pacific (USP). Under the prestigious Norway-Pacific Ocean-Climate Scholarship Programme (NPOC), a bi-institutional initiative between USP and the University of Bergen, Norway, Rore is documenting how rural Solomon Islands women utilise local knowledge systems to build climate-resilient futures.

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Climate risk is changing where banks lend – before disaster strikes

NikkiMorse — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:49:14 +0000

As a finance researcher at the UNSW Sydney Business School, and Senior Deputy Director of the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response, A/Prof. Romero Cortes says climate change is increasingly a financial problem.

She is the co-author of a new study, suggesting banks are adjusting their behaviour in anticipation of physical climate risk, before storms, floods or fires translate into financial losses.

“The finance side of climate risk isn’t just ‘disaster happens, then bank suffers’,” A/Prof. Romero Cortes says.

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