In November, the 2024 United Nations climate change conference (COP29), will take place in Azerbaijan, a country where fossil fuels account for two thirds of its economy. Attendees will gather after a northern hemisphere summer that was the hottest ever recorded, with predictions that 2024 temperatures will reach 1.57°C above pre-industrial levels. The 2016 Paris Agreement committed countries to keep “th...
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The devastation caused by record-breaking extreme weather events in 2023 and 2024 shows the human costs of a failure to curb greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to rapidly growing hazards. In 2023, annual global mean surface temperature broke all records, reaching 1·45°C above pre-industrial times; this 12-month record has also been breached again since then. Rapid attribution studies identified the influe...
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Microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi, and protists, are essential to life on Earth and the functioning of the biosphere. Here, we discuss the key roles of microorganisms in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), highlighting recent and emerging advances in microbial research and technology that can facilitate our transition toward a sustainable future. Gi...
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