News

Deforestation of the Amazon has soared in recent months as South America battles the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Last month, an area almost four times the size of Paris was destroyed as 156 square miles of rainforest wilderness was razed, reports the Daily Mail, with comment from Erika Berenguer, researcher in the ECI Ecosystems group.

Scientists have demonstrated that humans could restore roughly half the planet as a natural home for all wildlife, while at the same time feeding a growing population and limiting climate change. The new Nature Sustainability paper is from Michael Obersteiner, incoming director at the ECI.

Assessing how climate change affects extreme weather can improve climate science itself. This article in The conversation from Fredi Otto, acting director of the ECI, explains rapid attribution science and how it helps us to see, understand and better predict the impacts of global warming.

A team of researchers at the ECI have released a survey app dedicated to gathering data on UK households' energy usage during the COVID-19 crisis. The project is led by Philip Grunwald, the Deputy Director of Energy research at the ECI.

The impacts of COVID-19 on aviation are only just beginning to be felt. In this article for The Conversation, Professor Cameron Hepburn and Brian Callaghan look at how governments could use bailouts to encourage innovation and get something for all of us, and the climate, in return.

April 22 marked the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, and a few days later a global school strike was being organised by Fridays for Future. But after months of careful planning, both events were halted by the COVID-19 pandemic - so they went online instead. In this article for The Conversation, William Finnegan looks at the future of environmental activism.

Although the global lockdown due to coronavirus has lowered emissions, scientists including Doctor Karsten Haustein say that longer-term changes are needed, but that the pandemic could be a catalyst for more sustainable means of living.

Three graphs of mortality data tell the story of the direction the UK and the world are heading in after the peak of the coronavirus outbreak. Prof Danny Dorling tries to paint a clearer picture of the direction in which we are heading in an article for The Conversation.

The 'doughnut' economic model developed by Kate Raworth, researcher and advisory board member at the Environmental Change Institute, has been adopted by Amsterdam as the guiding policy to rebuild and mend the economy post-coronavirus.

Saher Hasnain, postdoctoral researcher and coordinator for the Foresight4Food Initiative, writes the first post in a series of reflection pieces and commentaries on food policy innovation in the COVID-19 crisis.