This special issue examines the multifaceted impact of climate change on business and finance, bringing together eight studies that explore how climate risks, opportunities, policies, and sentiment shape corporate behavior, investment decisions, and market dynamics. Key findings reveal that state ownership and environmental regulations significantly influence corporate environmental investment, while climate opportunity exposure can lower firms’ cost of capital in emerging markets. The research also highlights how climate policy uncertainty drives ESG performance improvements, and how both physical and transition climate risks amplify volatility in cryptocurrency markets. These insights underscore the growing integration of climate considerations into financial decision-making and point to actionable strategies for firms, investors, and policymakers navigating a climate-conscious economy.

In a paper published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, a team of researchers conducted a comprehensive analysis of historical changes in the frequency and spatial extent of hot droughts at multiple timescales across global land areas, as well as anthropogenic influences on these changes. They also showed that hot droughts at different timescales are projected to increase in the future. Findings of this study can be useful for developing adaptation strategies to cope with threats from extremes in a warmer future.

For many of us, the holiday season can mean delightful overeating, followed by recriminatory New Year’s resolutions.

But eating enough and no more should be on the menu for all of us, according to a recent UBC study. It found that 44 per cent of us would need to change our diets for the world to warm no more than 2 C.

Dr. Juan Diego Martinez, who led the research as a doctoral student at UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, discusses the study’s findings and the simple dietary changes we can all make.

The Universitat Jaume I in Castelló will develop six research and innovation projects in areas such as environmental sustainability and risk detection to improve disaster response through funding obtained in the competitive call for proposals from the Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI) (IVACE+e innovación) 2025, which seeks to promote innovation, R&D transfer and collaboration between universities, technology centres and companies.

The UJI has obtained funding in three lines of the call financed by the European Union within the framework of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Programme for the Valencian Community 2021-2027 – IVACE+ for an amount of nearly one million euros, with which it will promote six projects with direct technological and social impact to respond to real challenges.

The various initiatives led by UJI research staff will provide innovative solutions in the field of environmental sustainability through advanced technologies to improve water quality and management, strengthen the circular carbon economy, promote cleaner and safer production systems aligned with green technology, and strengthen the innovation ecosystem through materials with a lower environmental impact. They also seek to anticipate responses to situations of risk due to natural disasters resulting from climate change.