University of Lleida

Private flights are used by approximately 0.003 % of the world's population, but the CO₂ emissions they released in 2023 were equivalent to 1.8 % of those of all commercial aviation. These are the conclusions of a study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, which estimates that emissions from private flights increased by 46 % between 2019 and 2023. Almost half of them covered a distance of less than 500 kilometers.

Research published in Nature analyses future scenarios in which the 1.5°C temperature limit set in the Paris Agreement would be temporarily exceeded, assuming that temperatures could be lowered in the long term by reducing carbon dioxide emissions using different techniques. The authors stress that exceeding this threshold would have irreversible consequences for the Earth system in key areas such as biodiversity, sea level and carbon stocks. ‘Only rapid, short-term emission reductions are effective in reducing climate risks,’ they stress in the paper.

The surface of tree bark plays an important role in the elimination of methane gas from the atmosphere thanks to the microorganisms that live on it, according to a study published today in Nature in which CREAF participates. Methane is one of the gases responsible for the greenhouse effect. The authors estimate that this process, unknown until now, makes trees 10% more beneficial to the climate than previously thought.

Carbon stored globally by plants is shorter-lived and more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought, according to a study published in Science. This has implications for nature's role in climate change mitigation, including the potential for carbon removal projects such as mass tree planting. The research reveals that existing climate models underestimate the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) that vegetation absorbs globally each year, but overestimate how long that carbon stays there. 

The latest IPCC report shows that we are not close to limiting the rise in temperatures to 1.5ºC. Fortunately, he points out that climate action in the form of policy and law has increased, and that there is hope to cut emissions by at least half by 2030. In this sense, the retrofitting of existing buildings and the adequate design of new ones will play a fundamental role.