EurekAlert! Climate Change - Latest News Releases

Latest News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 15-Jan-2026 07:11 ET (15-Jan-2026 12:11 GMT/UTC)

Fossil fuel companies control a mere 1% of renewable energy projects worldwide

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The fossil fuel industry is falling far short of its pledge to lead the energy transition, according to new research from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). The study shows that the world’s largest oil and gas companies are responsible for only 1.42% of renewable energy projects worldwide.

Journal: Nature Sustainability

Wastewater plants produce twice as much greenhouse gases as officially estimated

Princeton University, Engineering School
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from Princeton engineering drove a moble lab across the country and found that emissions of methane and nitrous oxide, powerful greenhouse gases, are twice as high as national estimates.

Journal: Nature Water
Funder: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

China, the world's largest tea producer, is predicted to experience increases in land suitable for tea-growing under climate change, with the overall range shifting northwards, per AI modeling study

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

China, the world's largest tea producer, is predicted to experience increases in land suitable for tea-growing under climate change, with the overall range shifting northwards, per AI modeling study

Journal: PLOS One

Understanding the climate cost of cleaning our water

Northwestern University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

U.S. wastewater treatment plants emit the equivalent of 47 million metric tons of CO2 each year. Methane and nitrous oxide emissions exceed previous estimates by 41%. Emissions can be slashed by tackling methane leaks, capturing nitrogen.

Journal: Nature Water
Funder: U.S. Department of Energy

Panama Canal may face frequent extreme water lows in coming decades

American Geophysical Union
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In 2023, Panama experienced one of the worst droughts in its recorded history, and it severely depleted water available to the Panama Canal, so much that it decreased shipping by 30%. A new study published in AGU's journal Geophysical Research Letters projected historic water lows could become the new norm if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

Journal: Geophysical Research Letters

New ocean research alliance to boost national collaboration

University of British Columbia
Business Announcement

The Pacific Marine Science Alliance Society (PMSA) has announced a three-year agreement with the Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR) designed to strengthen national ocean research collaboration across Canada’s three coasts.

UBC is one of five member universities of the PMSA, which owns and operates the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, and works to advance marine and coastal research, education and sustainability.

The new partnership, backed by $300,000 in funding from PMSA and MEOPAR, will help researchers better collaborate at regional, national and international levels to address crucial research challenges, including climate resilience, marine hazard prediction and sustainable ocean resource use. The collaboration will also prioritize Indigenous-led stewardship, student mobility and new international research partnerships.

Can tiny ocean organisms offer the key to better climate modeling?

University of Pennsylvania
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Tiny ocean organisms living in oxygen-poor waters turn nutrients into nitrous oxide—a greenhouse gas far more powerful than carbon dioxide—via complex chemical pathways.

Penn’s Xin Sun and collaborators identified the how and why behind these chemical reactions, showing that microbial competition, not just chemistry, determines how much N₂O is produced.

Their findings pave the way for more reliable climate models, making global greenhouse gas estimates more effective, predictable, and easier to understand in response to natural and man-made climate change.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: Simons Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, Spanish Agency for Research, University of Basel

Neutron scanning of coral fossils reveals Earth’s hidden climate history

University of Sydney
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A University of Sydney student has developed a completely new way to peer inside coral fossils to recover lost records of past climate change. The method opens the door to recovering climate information from coral samples once written off as too altered to be useful

Journal: Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems
Funder: Australian Research Council, Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering

Climate change may create ‘ecological trap’ for species who can’t adapt

Case Western Reserve University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The increasing mismatch between hours of daylight and temperature could spell trouble for animals that thrive by relying on seasonal cues to prepare their bodies for winter, according to new research from Case Western Reserve University.

Journal: Journal of Animal Ecology

2023 ocean heatwave ‘unprecedented but not unexpected’

University of Exeter
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The June 2023 heatwave in northern European seas was “unprecedented but not unexpected”, new research shows.

Journal: Communications Earth & Environment
Funder: Natural Environment Research Council

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