Q&A: What does China’s new Paris Agreement pledge mean for climate action?
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President Xi Jinping has personally pledged to cut China’s greenhouse gas emissions to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035, while “striving to do better”. This is China’s third pledge under the Paris Agreement, but is the first to put firm constraints on the country’s emissions by setting an “absolute” target to reduce them. China’s leader […]
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AI system learns from many types of scientific information and runs experiments to discover new materials
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Machine-learning models can speed up the discovery of new materials by making predictions and suggesting experiments. But most models today only consider a few specific types of data or variables. Compare that with human scientists, who work in a collaborative environment and consider experimental results, the broader scientific literature, imaging and structural analysis, personal experience […]
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5 AI Agent Projects for Beginners
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Relaunching the Climate Litigation Database: Tracking the Law in a New Era
When lawsuits first began to raise climate change issues in the late 1980s, the cases were rare and experimental, with litigants testing out ways to draw on the growing body of climate science to argue for legal obligations to address “the serious and imminent threat to our environment posed by a continuation of global warming.”1 Four […]
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Beyond Vector Search: 5 Next-Gen RAG Retrieval Strategies
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Revealed: Use of heat ‘emergencies’ for rough sleepers hits record in England and Wales
A record number of heat-related “emergencies” have been triggered by councils this year to help rough sleepers in England and Wales, Carbon Brief analysis reveals. As climate change drives more heat extremes, there is a growing recognition that homeless people face a higher risk of illness and even death when temperatures soar. This summer has […]
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New AI system could accelerate clinical research
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Annotating regions of interest in medical images, a process known as segmentation, is often one of the first steps clinical researchers take when running a new study involving biomedical images. For instance, to determine how the size of the brain’s hippocampus changes as patients age, the scientist first outlines each hippocampus in a series of […]
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Cropped 24 September 2025: High Seas Treaty milestone; ‘Erratic’ water cycle; Family food at COP30
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight. This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here. Key developments High Seas Treaty milestone OCEAN PROTECTION: The High Seas Treaty, which aims to “protect the world’s oceans […]
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Andrew Kieffer Joins the Sabin Center as Fellow for the Renewable Energy Legal Defense Initiative
Andrew Kieffer joined the Sabin Center in September 2025 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Renewable Energy Legal Defense Initiative, which uses legal research and engagement to support siting utility- and community-scale renewable energy facilities and associated transmission and storage equipment. His work focuses on identifying legal pathways to challenge land-use and siting barriers which […]
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Study presents blueprint for hydrogen-powered UAVs
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Image credit: FAST space project, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license. Researchers in Korea have introduced the first comprehensive safety assessment framework for liquid hydrogen storage systems in UAVs, in a seemingly important contribution to efforts to deploy the putative green fuel in this area of aviation. It was published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy […]
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Alternative Approaches to Environmental Reparation: Rethinking Existing Legal Frameworks
As climate-related disasters intensify across the globe, the question of how to obtain redress for environmental damage has become increasingly urgent. Yet, public international law has so far struggled to provide effective remedies. The traditional framework of holding states responsible for environmental damage seems to fall short, especially in the context of complex cases of […]
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UK energy from waste sector could go carbon negative by 2035, according to industry report
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Disinfection system installed at a facility owned by South East Water A new report from Baringa, commissioned by EfW opeartor enfinium finds that the UK’s energy from waste sector could be carbon negative by 2035 – and deliver up to 10 million tonnes of carbon removals annually if Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology is […]
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Research details PFAS risk to farmlands and behaviour in soil-plant systems
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A new review study has revealed that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), widely known as “forever chemicals,” are increasingly entering farmland soils through waste recycling and wastewater reuse. Once in the soil, PFAS can migrate into crops, raising concerns for food safety and human health. The study, published in New Contaminants, compiled global waste and […]
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Rising temperatures mean more noise for those living near airports
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About 60,000 people currently live within the 50dB noise footprint of a departing Airbus A320 at Heathrow, with climate change potentially drawing around 2,500 more people into that zone by mid-century, according to the study. Warmer air from climate change will tend to make departing aircraft create more noise pollution around European airports by 2050, […]
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Conservation group warn Labour against painting nature as villain
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The party’s conference returns to Liverpool on Sunday 28 September – Wednesday 1 October (pictured, outside the event in 2018. Image credit: DILOCOM / Shutterstock.com) Ahead of the Labour Party Conference, Matt Browne, head of public affairs at The Wildlife Trusts, warns politicians against deregulation and urges them to heed the Truss debacle on this […]
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Data centres can become net zero and sustainable, says new report
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Presented as a first-of-its-kind strategic roadmap, a new report from consulting firm Ramboll attempts to plot a sustainable path ahead for this infrastructure category. Released at Climate Week NYC on 23 September, the authors of ‘Developing sustainable data centres: A strategic roadmap to achieve net zero carbon and reduce environmental impact’ say it offers full […]
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Green Manufacturing: How Mold Transfer Helps the Planet
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Manufacturers today face big pressure to make less pollution while staying competitive. Companies that sell everyday products must keep costs low but also meet growing green goals. One smart but often ignored method is mold transfer. This process gives old tools a second life. By reusing molds instead of throwing them away, factories cut waste, […]
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Improving the workplace of the future
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Whitney Zhang ’21 believes in the importance of valuing workers regardless of where they fit into an organizational chart. Zhang is a PhD student in MIT’s Department of Economics studying labor economics. She explores how the technological and managerial decisions companies make affect workers across the pay spectrum. “I’ve been interested in economics, economic impacts, and […]