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The energy and transportation sectors of emerging and advanced economies are responsible for much of the projected increases in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the absence of policy action, according to a statistical approach that combines economic output, demographic change, and emission intensities.

Imports and exports of agricultural goods change the distribution and flow of nutrients around the world. This study calculates trade-related phosphorus (P) resource savings and waste for 1961–2019, exploring options to improve global P use efficiency.

Remote sensed information and population data for continental Africa are used to assess how migration acts as an adaptation response after drought event. The effect on mobility is amplified with drought frequency and poverty.

Increasing variability of net biome production over recent decades may be due to climate change and points to destabilization of the carbon–climate system.

Net-zero emissions is more than a concept of physical climate science. It is implemented in social, political and economic contexts. This Perspective proposes seven attributes that are critical for the practical and effective implementation of net zero.

Meeting China’s growing demand for food, especially for livestock products, will have huge environmental impacts domestically and globally. This study finds large increases in land, water, fertilizer and greenhouse gas emissions that vary based on openness of trade.

Increasing nitrogen use efficiency is the most effective strategy to reduce undernourishment while respecting the nitrogen boundaries in regions such as China and India. This supply-side effort plays a more important role in alleviating food insecurity than demand-side efforts such as diet shifts and reduced waste when introducing regional nitrogen targets.

Global spatial data for terrestrial vertebrate and vascular plant diversity, above- and below-ground biomass carbon, and potential clean freshwater volume are combined in a joint optimization study to identify potential synergies for conservation management.

The enhanced CO₂ uptake by vegetation in response to powdered rock should be considered in assessing the feasibility of enhanced weathering as a negative emission technology in mitigating climate change, suggest simulations of a land surface model.

To enable net-negative CO₂ emissions, the repayment of previously accrued carbon debt by establishing the responsibility for the net removal of CO₂ by carbon-emitting parties through carbon removal obligations is necessary.

Soybean and corn production in Brazil increased more than fourfold from 1980 to 2016, which was achieved by double cropping and cropland expansion. The contribution patterns of the two strategies were spatiotemporally specific, while double cropping shows increasing impacts over land expansion to the grain boom.

Many trajectories for reaching climate change mitigation targets exaggerate the long-term need for CO₂ removal (CDR) because they assume an exponentially increasing carbon price. Here the authors analyse alternative carbon price pathways that halt warming while limiting CDR, and may be easier to implement.

Grasslands, and the livestock that live there, are dynamic sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, but what controls these fluxes remains poorly characterized. Here the authors show that on the global level, grasslands are climate neutral owing to the cancelling effects of managed vs. natural systems.

Based on a global-scale analysis of the leaf elemental composition of tree species, the authors show that shared ancestry is the major factor shaping plant elementomes, thus providing large-scale empirical support for the biogeochemical niche hypothesis.

Multicriteria optimization identifies global priority areas for ecosystem restoration and estimates their benefits for biodiversity and climate, providing cost–benefit analyses that highlight the importance of optimizing spatial planning and incorporating several biomes in restoration strategies.

To promote the recovery of the currently declining global trends in terrestrial biodiversity, increases in both the extent of land under conservation management and the sustainability of the global food system from farm to fork are required.

Technologies and systemic innovation are critical for the transformation of the food system. This Perspective identifies promising technologies, assesses their readiness and proposes eight action points to accelerate innovation.

Agriculture has a massive and growing footprint. This study finds that optimizing fertilizer and major crops globally could reduce by 50% needed global cropland, allowing restored vegetation on spared land to sequester carbon.

Penuelas et al analyse foliar concentrations of nutrients in the main tree species of European forests using data collected over 30 years, together with changes in atmospheric CO₂ levels, N and S deposition and climate. They find that foliar concentrations of N, P, K, S and Mg have decreased in central and southern Europe, with implications for forest ecosystems.

Transformation of the land sector is required to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C. Here, modelled emission pathways and mitigation strategies are reviewed. A land-sector roadmap of priority measures and key regions is presented.

Data from conventional sources cannot fully measure progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Here the authors present a roadmap describing how citizen-science data can integrate traditional data and make a significant contribution in support of the SDGs agenda.

Dietary changes to reduce environmental impacts depend on behavioural factors. By linking a behavioural diet shift model to an integrated assessment model, this study shows the role of social norms and self-efficacy as main drivers of widespread dietary changes.

Build a global network for mapping, modelling and managing agriculture, biodiversity, trade and nutrition, argue Guido Schmidt-Traub, Michael Obersteiner and Aline Mosnier.

Agriculture, climate and health are entwined. Plus: children can change parents’ minds on climate change, and the must-see science images of the month.

Recent publications have raised concerns regarding the actual feasibility Negative Emission Technologies (NETs). Here the authors commented on the financial viability of large-scale late century NETs and suggested that expenditure peak will occur in the end of the century, which would require massive global subsidy program.

Credibility of long-term projection in quantitative models is continuously under debate and they rely on validation to prove projection accuracy. Here the authors investigated the views on the validation approaches and they show that empirical data plays an important role in the validation practice in all main areas of sustainability science.

Issues around the use of natural resources are often framed in terms of the nexus concept. This Perspective discusses why the nexus concept matters in understanding the link between bio-physical and human dimensions, particularly with regard to the SDGs.

To achieve the climate target of the Paris Agreement substantial emission reductions will be required across economic sectors. Here the authors show that agriculture can make a significant contribution to non-CO₂ mitigation efforts through structural change in the livestock sector and the deployment of technical options.

The Paris Agreement is based on emission scenarios that move from a sluggish phase-out of fossil fuels to large-scale late-century negative emissions. Alternative pathways of early deployment of negative emission technologies need to be considered to ensure that climate targets are reached safely and sustainably.

The fertilization effect has the potential to limit the impacts of global warming, but the biosphere is likely to shift into a period in which this effect is saturated.

COP21 led to a global commitment to decarbonization before 2100 to combat climate change, but leaves the timing and scale of mitigation efforts to individual countries. Here, the authors show that global carbon emissions need to peak within a decade to maintain realistic pathways for achieving the Paris Agreement.

Global gridded crop models are increasingly used to assess climate change impacts on food production. Here, the authors assess crop yield uncertainty associated with soil data input, reporting that soil type strongly influences yield estimates, and may either buffer or amplify climate-related impacts.

Scenario analyses suggest that negative emissions technologies (NETs) are necessary to limit dangerous warming. Here the authors assess the biophysical limits to, and economic costs of, the widespread application of NETs.

Bioavailable nitrogen is increasing due to human activity, rapidly outpacing increases in another essential nutrient, phosphorous. Peñuelas et al.show that this increasing imbalance between these nutrients is likely to significantly affect life and limit carbon storage in this century.

Mineable phosphorus reserves are confined to a handful of countries. Reductions in wastage could free up this resource for low-income, food-deficient countries.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) has been widely discussed as a way of mitigating climate change while concurrently benefitting biodiversity. This study combines a global land-use model and spatial data on species distributions to quantify the potential impacts of REDD in avoiding global species extinctions.

Projections could help Central African nations in Copenhagen climate talks.