An analysis of national climate plans released today at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil warns that countries are failing to carry out core work required to reduce emissions by halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation, and are instead pushing unrealistic carbon removal schemes, such as large-scale tree planting.

An international research collaboration, including INRAE, has published the complete set of genes (pangenome) and agronomic traits (panphenome) of the eggplant. Beyond the genome, this comprehensive collection encompasses all known genetic variations within the species, including those involved in traits such as prickle development. Drawing on a global collection of more than 3,400 cultivated and wild eggplant varieties, the researchers identified over 20,000 gene families and 218 agronomic traits, including resistance to fungal wilt and antioxidant capacity. The dataset is freely accessible and provides valuable resources for breeders seeking to develop customised varieties adapted to local conditions and ongoing climate change. The results have been published in Nature Communications.

In a study published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, researchers from Nanjing Normal University developed a unified mathematical model and a six-category classification system for coastal tipping points. By integrating land-sea interactions and multi-scale processes, the framework analyzes 91 global cases, highlighting spatial heterogeneity and urging advances in data fusion, modeling, and adaptive management to address irreversible shifts in these vulnerable systems.

Droughts are having a major impact on Europe’s forests — and climate change could make them even more frequent. But diversity helps: a new study led by the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University shows that forests are more resistant to drought when trees employ different strategies for using water. The decisive factor is not only how many species are present, but how differently they absorb, store, and use water.