From a scientific standpoint, the causes of current ongoing climate change are well established. But in the context of rapid change, and real-world consequences, there is still room — and need — for scientific discussion in climate change fields.

Coral reefs are at risk from ongoing climate change. We can best serve the reefs by invoking realistic scenarios, empiricism, artificial intelligence and falsification to self-correct the current scientific limits that hinder climate science predictions, communication and policies.

Reef-building corals are declining globally, putting important ecosystem services at risk. Here we discuss the potential risks and benefits of coral ecological replacement, in which new species are introduced to replace the functional roles of species that have declined or disappeared.

Climate impacts are triggering a host of novel bio- and geoengineering interventions to save coral reefs. This Comment challenges heroic scientific assumptions and advocates for a more systemic, evidence-based approach to caring for coral reefs.

The authors link a recent collapse of a commercially valuable snow crab stock to borealization of the Bering Sea that is >98% likely to have been human induced.

The authors investigate the carbon storage response of wetland drainage in the context of rate-limiting phenol oxidase activity. They show divergent responses to short- and long-term drainage in Sphagnum versus non-Sphagnum wetlands determined by plant traits and plant–microbe interactions.

The authors demonstrate that integrating phenology data with evolutionary relationships can improve predictions of change. They show how including phylogenetic structure in plant responses to temperature produces better estimates and reveals markedly different responses across species.

Food choices greatly affect global GHG emissions, but the contributions of different groups, across or within countries, are highly unequal. Adopting the global planetary health diet could yield co-benefits by reducing both emissions and inequality among populations.

The Paris Agreement requires reaching net-zero carbon emissions, but a debate exists on how fast this can be achieved. This study establishes scenarios with different feasibility constraints and finds that the institutional dimension plays a key role for determining the feasible peak temperature.

While experiments in younger trees support increased production under higher CO₂, it is unclear whether more mature trees can respond similarly. Here, the authors show increased production of biomass in a 180-year-old Quercus robur L. woodland under 7 years of free-air CO₂ enrichment (FACE).

Large animal conservation and rewilding are increasingly considered to be viable climate mitigation strategies. We argue that overstating animal roles in carbon capture may hinder, rather than facilitate, effective climate mitigation and conservation efforts.

US healthcare contributes 8.5% of national greenhouse gas emissions, but its policies to guide mitigation and waste reduction are underdeveloped. We recommend national policies to streamline the adoption of best practices, address implementation challenges to achieve net-zero goals and serve as useful exemplars for other nations.