Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Doug Specht, Reader in Cultural Geography and Communication, University of Westminster

Rachel Reeves did not deliver a climate focused budget on November 26 2025. The Chancellor’s statement was framed around growth, productivity and the cost of living. Climate change and net zero were not primary headings. The word “climate” barely featured in her speech.

Yet dig into the budget document and climate was everywhere. The government announced the end of the energy company obligation (ECO), a long-standing scheme funding energy efficiency and low-carbon home upgrades.

The budget also introduced a new per-mile levy on electric vehicles from 2028. It extended the 5p fuel duty cut, kept the windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas at 78% until 2030, created new permissions for drilling near existing oil fields, committed billions to nuclear power, extended the UK emissions trading scheme to maritime routes, and introduced a carbon border adjustment mechanism from 2027.

These are not minor technical adjustments. They are decisions that will shape Britain’s emissions trajectory, energy infrastructure and climate resilience for decades. Some push in a low-carbon direction; others cut against or complicate decarbonisation. The tensions and trade-offs embedded in this budget deserve public scrutiny.

But you would struggle to learn much of this from the media coverage.

Searching across major UK news outlets on budget day revealed a striking pattern. Some outlets made climate connections: the BBC covered the oil industry windfall tax, the new electric vehicle levy and grid charge changes. The Independent and Daily Mirror reported on energy bills and green levies. The Telegraph and Reuters touched on energy elements in their roundups.

But other major outlets published multiple budget articles with little to no dedicated climate coverage at all. The Sun, Sky News and ITV News between them produced numerous pieces on the budget’s tax implications, benefit changes and political fallout, and the unprecedented leak of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) forecasts – yet barely mentioned the climate implications of the policies announced.

The substantive analysis of what the budget means for Britain’s climate trajectory appeared almost entirely in specialist publications. Carbon Brief produced a comprehensive breakdown. Climate think tank E3G warned that ending the Energy Company Obligation scheme risks 10,000 jobs and will prevent a million families from insulating their homes. The LSE’s Grantham Institute, BusinessGreen, Offshore Energies UK and others provided detailed coverage of implications for the energy transition.

This work is valuable. But specialist outlets reach specialist audiences. The gap between expert analysis and public information is vast. Most people who read about the budget on November 26 encountered stories about tax raids, benefit caps and political drama, not stories about home insulation, fuel duty’s climate impact, or the contradictions between new North Sea drilling and net zero.

Why climate remains a side story

The pattern reflects structural problems in how British media covers climate. Several factors were at play on budget day.

First, dominant frames crowded out climate. The budget was presented by government as being about growth and cost of living. The leak before the Chancellor’s speech dominated the news cycle, with procedural scandal trumping policy substance. Tax changes and benefit reforms fit familiar political narratives that journalists and audiences recognise.

Second, climate connections require explanation. Linking the end of the ECO scheme to insulation jobs and fuel poverty requires context. Connecting the emissions trading scheme extension to maritime emissions needs specialist knowledge. On budget day, with tight deadlines and competing stories, reporters default to familiar frames.

Third, climate remains a “beat” rather than a “lens” in most newsrooms. Environment reporters cover climate; political reporters cover budgets. The integration has not happened. Climate implications of fiscal policy fall between desks.

The result is that detailed climate analysis exists, but in a specialist niche that mass audiences do not access. The public receives fragmented, decontextualised information about policies that will affect their lives for decades.

A different approach is possible

Other media systems demonstrate that climate connections can be mainstreamed. In France, broadcasters and newspapers have transformed their coverage of extreme weather events, explicitly drawing connections between heatwaves, wildfires and flooding and the documented effects of global warming. Headline language has shifted from “exceptional heatwave” to “symptom of climate change”. Climate is now treated as context, not occasional specialist story.

When climate policy is made through non-climate budgets, as it was on November 26, audiences need journalists who can surface those connections. This requires climate literacy across newsrooms, not confined to environment desks. It requires editorial decisions to treat climate as relevant to fiscal, economic and political coverage.

What gets lost

When climate connections go unreported, democratic accountability suffers. The public did not easily learn from mainstream coverage that ending the ECO scheme trades lower bills now for reduced home insulation in future. They did not learn that fuel duty cuts work against emissions reduction. They did not learn that this budget embeds climate choices in infrastructure spending for decades.

Policy contradictions go unscrutinised. Trade-offs are not debated. Climate measures, both positive and negative, happen without public understanding.

November 26, 2025 was not a climate budget. But it was a budget with significant climate consequences. The gap between those two facts, and the media’s failure to bridge it, matters for how Britain navigates the transition ahead.

If climate policy is everywhere, climate journalism needs to be too.

Doug Specht does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The biggest climate stories often aren’t labelled ‘climate’ – so newsrooms miss them – https://theconversation.com/the-biggest-climate-stories-often-arent-labelled-climate-so-newsrooms-miss-them-270833

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Powell, Teaching Fellow in Strategic and Air Power Studies, University of Portsmouth

Like so many conflicts before it, the Russo-Ukraine war has forced both sides to innovate. Since they have been able to gain control of opposition air space, neither side has made wide use of traditional air assets such as fast fighter jets. which take much time and money to manufacture and so can’t be risked in active operations.

Instead, drones are now dominating the war. According to figures emerging from Ukraine, drones are causing an overwhelming percentage of all the casualties the country is suffering, amounting to between 60% to 70%.

However, history shows that this kind of technological advance in warfare is often followed by the development of counter measures. And we’re now seeing the emergence of anti-drone weapons that could reduce the importance of unmanned aerial vehicles in the Ukraine conflict and beyond.

The use of drones has changed the character of warfare with the zone in which ground forces are vulnerable to lethal attack extending to between six and nine miles behind the front lines. This has made trenches, fortified positions and armoured vehicles much more vulnerable than they would have been previously.

It is not just in the attack role that drones have proved their value, although their use in the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance role is remarkably similar to that performed by aircraft and balloons in the first world war. Drones have been used to provide real-time intelligence and situational awareness of the battlefield to aid planning and mid-level command, control and communication on the battlefield.

The ability for drones to loiter for prolonged periods of time, combined with the difficulty in successfully targeting these assets, has also seen their use in artillery spotting.

It has been argued that drones – and uncrewed aerial vehicles more generally – represent a radical change in the way moderns wars are fought and that these assets will shape the future of aerial warfare for a significant period. But what this argument fails to take into account is that when new technologies are deployed in warfare, counter measures and innovations can often quickly emerge that reduce their effectiveness.

The first use of tanks on the western front was during the five-month Battle of the Somme in 1916. Despite the radical boost the first tanks gave the allied forces, the Germans had soon negated this effect through the use of anti-tank guns by early 1917.

Countering drones

Similar developments are being seen in Ukraine where simple countermeasures such as netting are being used to reduce drones effectiveness. While this is providing a limited degree of protection, more technologically sophisticated countermeasures are being developed elsewhere.

The UK’s navy has recently announced it will deploy a direct-energy weapon that has been named DragonFire. DragonFire is a laser-based defensive capability that has the capability to target and destroy small offensive weapons such as drones.

While there are limitations to Dragonfire, such as the requirement to be able to see the target in order to engage it, it demonstrates the continual tit-for-tat developments that widely encompass warfare.

The cost per shot of Dragonfire is as low as £10 and it can engage a target the size of a one-pound coin from a distance of one kilometre. This will mean that assets such as drones more vulnerable to defensive capabilities and calls into question the claim that drones are the future of aerial warfare. The Royal Navy plans to begin deploying DragonFire from 2027.

The UK is also experimenting with another form of direct-energy weapon that relies on radio-frequency systems. This new defensive weapon, which is currently undergoing trials, would use a pulse of directed radio waves in order to disable the internal electronics of assets such as drones.

This system has advantages over Dragonfire. The first is that it is not a line-of-sight weapon, so it can be deployed in bad weather and in low cloud cover. DragonFire has to be able to see its target in order to be able to engage it effectively.

The second is that a radio pulse weapon can engage several targets in a specified area, whereas Dragonfire is only able to engage one target at a time.

But the major disadvantage to a radio pulse weapon is that it cannot discriminate between the targets which it engages. This means that friendly aircraft cannot fly when this target is being utilised.

The traditional tempo of technological developments and countermeasures that is a major character in warfare shows no sign of abating in 21st-century conflicts. So while drones are likely to remain important weapons, the idea that they will revolutionise warfare and make crewed warplanes obsolete is still to be seen.

Matthew Powell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Drones have changed warfare. Two new weapons might be about alter its course again – https://theconversation.com/drones-have-changed-warfare-two-new-weapons-might-be-about-alter-its-course-again-267895

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alex Dryden, PhD Candidate in Economics, SOAS, University of London

Rachel Reeves’s second budget landed in an unusual fashion. Before she delivered it, most of the key details had already been revealed accidentally by the Office for Budget Responsibility.

This meant many observers – including the financial markets – had an unprecedented preview of the chancellor’s announcement. But what are these markets that governments are so mindful of when they come up with economic policy, and why does it matter what they think or do?

Generally, “the markets” refers to a broad set of investors who buy, sell and set the price of financial assets such as shares, bonds and currencies.

Key among them are the buyers of UK government bonds (commonly known as “gilts”), which is a form of government debt. Investors effectively lend money to the government, which pays it back with interest.

Buyers of gilts include pension funds, insurance companies, asset managers, banks and overseas investors. Their willingness to hold UK debt determines how much it costs the government to borrow (the more willing the investors, the cheaper it is for the government).

Alongside them are currency traders, who buy and sell the pound based on how they view the UK’s economic outlook. Their decisions feed directly into the value of sterling. A third group are equity investors, who assess how tax and spending changes will influence the profitability of companies listed on the stock market.

These different groups don’t coordinate with one another, but together they form the landscape described as “the markets”.

Rachel Reeves will have been relieved that the fairly muted reaction from all of the markets, despite the unprecedented preview, was striking mainly for its lack of drama. Traders still watched the chancellor’s speech line by line, but because so much of the package had been briefed in advance, there was very little for investors to reassess.

The £26 billion increase in taxes helped calm the markets’ fears of reckless fiscal giveaways. As a result, the bond markets barely moved.

Currency traders responded in much the same way. Growth estimates have been downgraded but with no unexpected measures, the pound held steady against other major currencies. This signalled that investors saw nothing in the announcement to shift the UK’s inflation outlook or expectations over interest rates.

Equity markets too were largely unchanged, as the measures affecting specific sectors were already anticipated and mostly priced in. Overall, investors appeared to take the view that the budget simply confirmed what they already knew.

Mute market

Even a muted reaction carries meaning for the wider economy. Small declines in gilt yields (the interest paid to investors) still help lower government borrowing costs, easing the pressure on the public finances at the margin. And because gilt yields serve as a benchmark for mortgages and business loans, even modest downward movements can help gently soften borrowing conditions across the economy.

A stable pound also matters. When exchange rates remain steady, the cost of imports becomes more predictable, which supports efforts to control inflation. It also reinforces the sense that markets see no new risks on the horizon, which is a form of reassurance in itself.

Behind these movements lies a broader judgement about credibility. Markets constantly assess whether the government’s plans are coherent, deliverable and consistent with long-term economic goals.

They do not demand austerity, but they do look for fiscal plans that add up and do not introduce unnecessary risk. The absence of significant volatility after Reeves’ announcement suggests that investors concluded the budget was neither a breakthrough nor a cause for concern. It simply met expectations.

In financial markets, credibility sits at the centre of every reaction. The muted response implies that investors were broadly satisfied that the government’s plans were realistic and contained no unwelcome surprises.

But credibility is not something won permanently. It can take years to build in the eyes of bond markets, yet it can evaporate in a single misstep. The UK still has a long road back to genuine fiscal sustainability – but for now at least, the financial markets seem content with what they heard.

Alex Dryden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How the financial markets reacted to the UK budget (and why they matter) – https://theconversation.com/how-the-financial-markets-reacted-to-the-uk-budget-and-why-they-matter-270820

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Will de Freitas, Environment + Energy Editor, The Conversation

This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine.

Cop30 was never just another UN climate summit. Its setting in Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon, was a reminder that negotiations now unfold within the crisis they are meant to solve.

Ultimately the summit, which wrapped up last weekend, was a disappointment. The core negotiations on emissions reductions produced an underwhelming deal, and many academics argue that these days the most exciting progress happens in the side events. Yet even as political negotiations faltered, Cop30 revealed the rising power of first-hand experience – from indigenous leaders and youth negotiators to people using stories not spreadsheets to cut through climate fatigue.

The ‘people’s Cop’ that wasn’t

Brazil promised this would be the “implementation Cop” – one with more action than words, focused on the people most affected by climate change. But Simon Chin-Yee, who was at the negotiations in Belém, and his colleagues at UCL say it failed on that count.

They note that over 5,000 indigenous people were at the summit, but that “only 360 secured passes to the main negotiating ‘blue zone’, compared to 1,600 delegates linked to the fossil fuel industry”.

With the US having withdrawn from the Paris agreement (again), China became “one of the loudest voices in the room” in an attempt to cement its status as a green technology superpower. The absence of America came as a relief for some delegates, say Chin-Yee and colleagues:

“Without the distraction of the US attempting to ‘burn the house down’ … the conference was able to get on with the business at hand: negotiating texts and agreements that will limit global warming.”

But, nonetheless, they say the agreement reached – the Belém package – is “weak” and won’t get us anywhere near limiting warming to 1.5˚C.

“Most striking,” they write, “is the absence of the words ‘fossil fuels’ from the final text even though they were central to the Glasgow climate pact (2021) and the UAE consensus (2023).”

Read more:
Cop30: five reasons the UN climate conference failed to deliver on its ‘people’s summit’ promise

The Amazon speaks

If the main negotiations were disappointing, perhaps Cop30 will be mostly remembered for its location. “The pivot from the two previous conferences in petrostates Azerbaijan and UAE … was jarring.”

That’s according to Alexander Lees, who researches tropical ecology at Manchester Met and has lived in Belém for many years. Lees, with two colleagues, says the city’s climate even “became a protagonist in its own right”. “A huge thunderstorm during one afternoon flooded many roads and brought down trees across the city, causing power outages.”

Meanwhile, Belém’s oppressive heat and humidity was noticeable even in the negotiating rooms: “This catalysed an official complaint from UN climate chief Simon Stiell about the climate conditions in the Cop venue, asking for ‘a clear delivery plan on how temperatures will be brought down within the next 24 hours’. The parallels to the goals of the wider negotiation process were hard to miss.

Read more:
Why hosting the UN climate summit in the Amazon was so important, despite the disappointing outcome

Stories cut through the noise

The image of climate diplomats wiping sweat from their brows as they struggle to focus in a stuffy room is compelling. And it’s this sort of stuff that often gets people interested.

Until the final few days of Cop30, the biggest stories to emerge from the summit all had a human angle: the floods, an indigenous protest, a fire that briefly evacuated the negotiations.

That makes sense. The negotiators speak in mitigation pathways and emissions curves, while people speak in memories, anecdotes and daily struggles shaped by a changing climate. The latter is just much more compelling.

Indeed, stories of personal experience cut through “climate fatigue” in ways that global negotiations can’t, according to climate psychologists Gulnaz Anjum of the University of Limerick and Mudassar Aziz of the University of Oslo.

“Psychology research consistently shows that people engage more deeply when they can recognise themselves, their families, their fears and their hopes in climate stories. Without that human connection, climate messages often become background noise.”

One problem is that people are often exhausted by gloomy climate news. This isn’t them being disengaged, say Anjum and Aziz, it’s a sign they are overwhelmed. “Years of catastrophic headlines, stalled policies and political gridlock create a sense of powerlessness. This ‘climate fatigue’ is often mistaken for apathy, yet it is more accurately a form of emotional self-protection.”

What works, they say, is “grounded hope”, and “stories that reflect their own struggles and resilience: a family rebuilding after a hurricane; neighbours sharing water during heatwaves; young people restoring mangroves to protect coastlines; mothers comforting frightened children as storms approach.”

Read more:
How stories of personal experience cut through climate fatigue in ways that global negotiations can’t

We gambled and lost

With all that said, let’s end on a gloomier note. Our final story doesn’t open with a personal narrative, but it does have a nice metaphor: the lost gamble.

Ten years ago the world placed a bet, say James Dyke of the University of Exeter and Johan Rockström of the Potsdam Institute in Germany. The Paris agreement, and its system of voluntary emissions cuts and agreement by consensus, would put humanity on a path to avert dangerous climate change.

A decade on, after another underwhelming summit, they reckon “we can definitively say humanity has lost this bet.”

Referring to scientific attempts to map out plausible scenarios for the future, they say the best on offer is now “a future where peak warming reaches 1.7°C before returning to within 1.5°C in 75 years”.

That’s certainly better than the scenario in which we do nothing. But even that modest win will require “immediate action” on multiple fronts: a fossil fuel phase out; a food system that absorbs carbon instead of emitting it; removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on an unprecedented scale.

Belém may have failed politically but it highlighted something academics have been saying for years: narrative and symbolism can sometimes be as powerful as facts and laws. If Cop30 taught us anything, it’s that the era of negotiating climate change at arm’s length is hopefully coming to a close. The crisis is no longer outside the venue – it’s flooding the streets and overheating the negotiating rooms. Whether world leaders listen is one question hanging over the road to Cop31 host Turkey, and beyond.

Read more:
Turkey will host the next UN climate summit – here’s how it plans to use its moment in the spotlight

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– ref. Cop30 saw important developments amid huge disappointment – https://theconversation.com/cop30-saw-important-developments-amid-huge-disappointment-270712

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam Taylor, Professor of Anatomy, Lancaster University

Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas recently revealed that she’d “thought that was it” after a fish bone became lodged in her throat. Ballas’s terrifying ordeal lasted for 20 minutes, with the judge struggling to breathe until her hair and makeup artist managed to dislodge the bone using the Heimlich manoeuvre (also known as abdominal thrusts).

Ballas certainly isn’t the first person to make the news for such an ordeal. Even the late Queen Mother had experienced something similar.

Fish bones are actually one of the most common reasons people end up in the emergency department. This phenomenon is particularly common in Asian countries, where diets tend to include a lot of fish. The problem is so great, in fact, that in China specialist fish bone removal clinics have popped up.

Although fish are a good source of many minerals, protein and heart-healthy fatty acids, they also contain multiple small, delicate “pin” bones – usually in the fillet.

Cod have approximately 17 pin bones and salmon have around 30 – though some fish can have over 100. Eel bones have also frequently been linked to emergency room trips, while flounder bones are particularly dangerous because of the number and size of them – making it easy for them to get lodged far down the throat.

This means that despite the care taken during the food prep process, some may inadvertently slip through. These bones can be dangerous if swallowed accidentally – and choking is just one of the serious complications that they can cause.

Fish bones typically become lodged in the tonsils at the back of the throat, in the pharynx at the back of the mouth, the piriform sinus (a small hollow that plays a role in swallowing) and, of course, the oesophagus (the canal which connects the throat to the stomach).

If you do accidentally swallow a fish bone, you’ll probably experience coughing, a prickly or “something stuck” sensation in the throat, as well as pain or difficulty swallowing and spitting up blood.

However, they don’t always cause symptoms – and some people end up living unknowingly with a fish bone stuck in their throat. For instance, in 2012 a 69-year-old Japanese woman went to hospital complaining of a swollen neck – only for doctors to discover she had a 32mm fish bone which had been lodged in her throat for nine months.

Undiscovered fish bones can also migrate around the neck. Repeated swallowing can also result in the bones penetrating the wall of the oesophagus and moving into the tight spaces in the neck.

Here, the bone poses a high risk to the vast number of critical nerves and blood vessels that pass through the neck – such as the carotid artery, which is one of the major vessels that supplies blood to the brain.

Bones can also pierce the thyroid gland, which can cause abscesses and inflammation. This can also lead to sepsis, a rare but incredibly dangerous complication.

In some cases, lodged fish bones have even managed to migrate into the neck’s muscles and under the skin. They can even pop out the skin too – as happened recently to one Thai woman.

Any bones that manage to migrate out of the throat are a surgical emergency as there’s no way to dislodge it otherwise. These bones can also cause infections in the spaces around the heart, or migrate into the spinal cord leading to secondary infections which could cause paralysis.

This is why it’s imperative that if you do accidentally swallow a bone, you try to remove it as soon as possible.

What to do

Stuck fish bones can be removed in a variety of ways.

For some people, a forceful cough will be enough to eject it. This technique is most effective in cases where the bone is stuck in the airway, rather than the oesophagus.

But one problem with coughing is that instead of ejecting it, it could dislodge the bone and allow it to pass into the stomach and through the intestines, where there’s a risk of perforation.

Bones that are stuck in the wall of the oesophagus could potentially move through the body, but many cases will require endoscopic removal.

Some tips suggest that eating something such as bread or banana can force the bone down, but there’s no scientific evidence to support this remedy. It may even further block the airway or oesophagus – and could potentially make things worse by lodging the bone further into the tissue. So if coughing doesn’t help and you still have symptoms, seeking medical advice is the next sensible step.

Where a person is unable to speak or breathe then abdominal thrusts may be needed to help dislodge the offending fish bone (or other item). If it comes to this, you should call emergency services and seek urgent medical support.

Adam Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why it’s so easy to choke on fish bones – and the other dangers they pose – https://theconversation.com/why-its-so-easy-to-choke-on-fish-bones-and-the-other-dangers-they-pose-270613

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Inge Schrijver, PhD researcher, Wellbeing Inclusivity Sustainability & the Economy, Leiden University

Climate change is already shaping our wellbeing. It affects mental health, spreads infectious diseases, disrupts work, damages food supplies and forces families to leave their homes because of conflict, hunger or flooding.

Wellbeing refers to everything that enables people to live healthy, safe and meaningful lives. It includes physical and mental health, access to food, clean water, hygiene and income, as well as work, leisure, culture and education.

It also involves personal safety, freedoms, trust in institutions and how people feel about their own lives. Environmental quality, biodiversity and the degree of inequality in society are part of wellbeing too. Climate change touches every one of these areas.

Our new study, written with René Kleijn of Leiden University, examined the many ways climate change affects wellbeing and assessed whether these impacts are reflected in the climate policy models that guide global decision-making.

These models are large computer simulations that explore how society and the economy might change under different climate and policy scenarios. Policymakers use them to test “what-if” questions, such as introducing a carbon price or expanding renewable energy, before making real decisions.

We found that although researchers have documented a wide range of climate-related harms, very few of these factors appear in the most influential models used by governments and international agencies. Newer experimental models do include wellbeing, but these are not the ones shaping today’s climate policies.

This gap matters because climate policy models influence real-world choices. For example, the International Energy Agency’s modelling informs energy investments. The models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s scientific advisory body, have shaped global interest in bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, sometimes at the expense of rapid emissions cuts.

If wellbeing is not represented, the benefits of climate action will be undervalued because the models cannot account for them.

Research from more than one hundred institutions through the Lancet Countdown – one of the world’s leading annual assessments of how climate change is already impacting human health – shows that heat is now responsible for around 550,000 deaths each year. This is 63% more than in the 1990s. Four out of five heatwave days today would not have occurred without climate change.

Rising temperatures are changing the nature of work. In 2024, 640 billion potential working hours were lost in sectors such as agriculture and construction because conditions were too hot to work safely. This represents more than $1 trillion US dollars (£755,725,000) in lost income.

Heat and drought threaten global food systems as well. According to Lancet Countdown projections, if the planet warms by 2°C, around 500 million more people could face food insecurity within the next two decades.

If warming reaches 3.6°C by the end of the century, the number could rise to 1.1 billion. These estimates do not yet include the effects of sea-level rise, damaged infrastructure, agricultural pests or reduced nutrient content in crops.

None of these impacts – heat deaths, lost working hours, or rising food insecurity – are systematically included in the major climate policy models used today. That means decisions about climate action may be overlooking some of the most important human consequences.

Failing to cut emissions costs lives and livelihoods but climate action protects both.

Why climate models still miss wellbeing

Despite extensive research, most climate policy models ignore impacts on wellbeing. When wellbeing is included, it is often measured in narrow economic terms that miss what matters most to people.

Yet many areas have already been studied in ways that could be incorporated into models. Research has quantified the damage from diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea and cardiovascular illness, as well as mental health conditions including depression and suicide.

For example, a large systematic review examined the link between extreme heat and worsening mental health, including hospitalisations for psychiatric conditions.

Other work shows how climate change affects worker productivity, leisure, conflict, migration, air quality and biodiversity. Studies have demonstrated clear connections between rising temperatures and reduced labour productivity, and between climate change and biodiversity loss, with implications for human health and food systems. These issues are central to people’s lives and should be represented in policy modelling.

Some areas have been explored in research but still cannot be included in climate policy models because they lack the numerical data needed for modelling. These areas include education, cultural heritage, subjective wellbeing (how people evaluate and feel about their own lives), and governance.

Some reviews describe how climate change affects these aspects of life. However, they also emphasise that these impacts remain difficult to quantify in consistent, comparable ways, which is why they are not yet represented in most climate models.

Inequality must be part of the picture

Climate change does not affect everyone equally. Women, children and older adults are often more exposed. Evidence from the United Nations and global health research shows that these groups face higher mortality and displacement risks during climate-related disasters.

Read more:
How stories of personal experience cut through climate fatigue in ways that global negotiations can’t

Some people face greater risks because they do not have safe housing, live in regions already experiencing extreme heat, work outdoors or lack the financial resources to prepare for future impacts.

People who contributed least to climate change often face the most severe consequences, particularly in regions with limited means to adapt. This pattern is described extensively in literature on climate vulnerability and justice, such as the 2026 Global Climate Risk Index. Almost no climate policy model includes these inequalities.

Climate change is not only about emissions and temperature limits. It affects how people live, work, eat, breathe, learn and feel. When models ignore wellbeing, they underestimate the benefits of climate action and overlook the true costs of inaction.

To create climate policy that reflects real human lives, wellbeing needs to move from the margins to the centre of modelling efforts. Climate action is not only an environmental necessity. It is an investment in global health, safety, dignity and fairness.

Inge Schrijver’s PhD is part of the WISE Horizons project, which is funded by Horizon Europe (grant number 101095219).

Paul Behrens receives funding from The British Academy and REAPRA.

Rutger Hoekstra receives funding from the Horizon Europe “WISE Horizons” Research & Innovation Action (GA 101095219).

– ref. Climate action saves lives. So why do climate models ignore wellbeing? – https://theconversation.com/climate-action-saves-lives-so-why-do-climate-models-ignore-wellbeing-269879