ÌÇÐÄÔ­´´

The topic of climate is not often associated with good news. As discussed in a recent Nature Climate Change ; data, reporting and people’s lived experiences indicate that climate change is here, and it’s having a real and dangerous effect on global citizens.  

Since the first issue of Nature Climate Change in 2011, an , the world looks very different. The global mean surface air temperature has increased by more than half a degree, 60,323,400 km² of vegetated area has burned (roughly 11 times the area of the Amazon rainforest) and the global average sea level has risen by 52.7mm. Amid this context, it’s understandable that the public mood tips towards anxiety, with around 60% of the 16-25 year olds  saying they felt â€˜very’ or ‘extremely’ worried about the future of the planet.  

But in my role as Chief Editor of a global journal, I’m fortunate to see firsthand the breadth of work being done across disciplines and regions. I see risks sharpening, but I also see the response strengthening. This serves as a reminder for those of us working in climate research as much as it does for anyone watching from the outside: if we tell ourselves it’s only bad news, we make it harder to sustain the pace, creativity and collaboration that progress depends on. 

So, let’s look to the successes of the last 15 years: a much broader research community involved in understanding climate change, a clearer sense of how science can inform decisions in the real world, and a far stronger evidence base, to name a few. We’ve seen major milestones in global climate governance, including the Paris Agreement, successive climate COPs and IPCC reports. Over 135 countries have adopted net-zero emissions targets with around 40% of electricity now produced from clean and low-carbon sources. And as we , there are safeguards in place that prevent a reversal on climate action so far. What’s more, the worst-case climate scenarios, set out in early COPs, are now exceptionally unlikely due to these policy shifts.  

Closer to home, at Nature Climate Change we’ve developed new ways of highlighting success and speeding up action with our  and  features. Research from our pages repeatedly makes the top 10 most talked-about climate-related papers in  And in 2025 alone, ÌÇÐÄÔ­´´ published over 114,000 climate-related articles and book chapters.  

Throughout my decade-long tenure at Nature Climate Change, there’s been many moments, people and papers to be proud of (see our  for one of my memorable papers at that time.) But one thing in particular stands out. Nature Climate Change was created as the first thematic journal in the Nature Portfolio, designed to bring natural and social sciences together around a shared challenge. It’s wonderful to see that this interdisciplinary approach has become ever more important. Climate change is no longer discussed as a niche interest, but a cross-sector issue. The papers and proposals arriving on our desks now span mitigation, adaptation, impacts, equity, governance, behaviour, finance and technology, often all at once. Today, our pages reflect a wider range of topics, methods and perspectives than anyone could have predicted in 2011. 

Crucially, climate action is also a knowledge challenge. Solutions do not appear fully formed. They are discovered, tested, improved, and scaled. That process relies on research and on the systems that allow knowledge to move from one research group to another, from one discipline to another, and from evidence to decisions. This is where publishing plays an important role, helping to qualify research, so that policymakers and practitioners can trust what they are using. It helps to connect findings, so that we are not solving the same problems in isolation. And it helps to accelerate learning, by making results discoverable, comparable, and ready to be built upon. For addressing climate change, that matters at every step: understanding the physical system, assessing risks and impacts, designing and evaluating interventions, and learning what works in different contexts. 

I am under no illusion about the scale of what lies ahead. Ambition still needs to rise, and implementation needs to catch up. But we have a stronger scientific foundation, better tools, and broader awareness than we did 15 years ago. Most importantly, there is a global community of people who care deeply; researchers, reviewers, practitioners and readers. Nature Climate Change exists because of that community, and for it.