COP29

No breakthrough for climate finance 

The 29^th UN Climate Change Conference focused on financial aid to support developing countries in climate protection, climate adaptation, and the mastering of losses and damages. The resolution was largely deferred to the next summit in Brazil. The CO₂ markets, ruled by the Paris Agreement, are set to commence. “Little progress” is the conclusion of climate economist Prof Reimund Schwarze and forest expert Dr Friedrich Bohn from the UFZ. 

White Smokers

Spectacular Chimneys discovered in the Dead Sea

In a UFZ coordinated project, researchers have discovered meter-high chimneys on the floor of the Dead Sea. These are formed by the spontaneous crystallization of minerals from groundwater with an extremely high salt content flowing up out of the lake floor, they report in Science of the Total Environment. Discovered for the first time, these chimneys are an important early warning indicator for sinkholes. The subsidence craters are an eminent hazard for the population. 

Extreme Events

The 2022 Drought: What was the Role of Climate Change?

A research team coordinated by the UFZ has discovered that more than 30 percent of the extraordinary intensity and physical extent of the drought that affected large parts of Central / Southern Europe in the summer 2022 can be attributed to human-induced climate change. As they write in Nature Geoscience, this extreme event was exacerbated by the fact that climate change had already caused soil moisture levels to drop continuously over the previous years.

Climate Change

Mobilisation of Toxic Metals in Soils

Climate change could cause toxic metals that occur naturally in soils to become more mobile, destabilise ecosystems and increasingly enter the human food chain via agriculture. Scientists from the UFZ and the University of Tübingen have investigated this in an experimental study focusing on the behaviour of the toxic metal cadmium. Its mobility could increase by around 40 percent under future climate conditions. The study was published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment. 

Plastics

Moving beyond the Perspective on Waste

In an overview study for the journal Environment International, an interdisciplinary UFZ team has evaluated more than 19,000 scientific studies and analysed the impacts of plastics on the three planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution. Against the context of international efforts to reach a global UN plastics treaty, they are calling for regulations that account for the multifaceted impacts of plastics in these three crises.

Policy Brief

Potential for better Chemicals Regulation

The global production of chemicals is expected to triple by 2050. So, we are exposed to more and more chemicals that are released into the environment and can endanger biodiversity and our health. The existing risk assessment procedures in the EU are too slow, too cumbersome and do not fulfil the regulatory requirements. Helmholtz researchers and representatives from NGOs, industry and authorities are therefore increasingly calling for New Approach Methodologies (NAMs).

Statement

Rethinking Agricultural Productivity: More than Yield and Land Area

Traditionally, agricultural productivity has been evaluated as yield per unit of land. In view of climate change, limited resources and environmental impacts, this way of thinking falls short, write UFZ researchers in their statement. They redefine agricultural productivity as a multifaceted concept that extends beyond area-based yield. 

Discussion Paper

BECCS – a Sustainable Contribution to permanent CO₂ Removal?

The German government is preparing the introduction of CO₂ Removal Technologies with its Long-term Strategy for Negative Emissions. Could bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage play a role in this? Based on the current material flows of the bioenergy system, researchers from UFZ and DBFZ discuss this question in their paper.

Prof Aletta Bonn

Biologist Aletta Bonn, Head of the Department of Biodiversity and People at UFZ and iDiv, is one of the nine scientists appointed by the Federal Cabinet to the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) on 1 November. The WBGU is fully independent in its work and choice of topics. It is monitored and supported by an interministerial committee of the federal government in which the Federal Chancellery and all the ministries are represented. 

Prof Josef Settele, Prof Ingolf Kühn und Prof Jakob Zscheischler 

Three UFZ scientists – agroecologist Josef Settele, macroecologist Ingolf Kühn and climate scientist Jakob Zscheischler – are represented in the annual ranking of the most cited and therefore most influential researchers worldwide in 2024. Each researcher selected has authored multiple Highly Cited Papers™ which rank in the top 1 percent by citations for their field and publication year in the Web of Science™ over the past decade.