Climate change is significantly altering our planet, with greenhouse gas emissions and environmental changes bringing us closer to critical tipping points. These changes are impacting species and ecosystems worldwide, leading to the urgent need for understanding and mitigating climate change risks. In this study, we examined global research on assessing climate change risks to species and ecosystems. We found that interest in this field has grown rapidly, with researchers identifying key factors such as species' vulnerability, adaptability, and exposure to environmental changes. Our work highlights the importance of developing better tools to predict risks and create effective protect strategies.

The rising concentration of greenhouse gases, coupled with environmental changes such as albedo shifts, is accelerating the approach to critical climate tipping points. These changes have triggered significant biological responses on a global scale, underscoring the urgent need for robust climate change risk assessments for species and ecosystems. We conducted a systematic literature review using the Web of Science database. Our bibliometric analysis shows an exponential growth in publications since 2000, with over 200 papers published annually since 2019. Our bibliometric analysis reveals that the number of studies has exponentially increased since 2000, with over 200 papers published annually since 2019. High-frequency keywords such as ‘impact’, ‘risk’, ‘vulnerability’, ‘response’, ‘adaptation’, and ‘prediction’ were prevalent, highlighting the growing importance of assessing climate change risks. We then identified five universally accepted concepts for assessing the climate change risk on species and ecosystems: exposure, sensitivity, adaptivity, vulnerability, and response. We provided an overview of the principles, applications, advantages, and limitations of climate change risk modeling approaches such as correlative approaches, mechanistic approaches, and hybrid approaches. Finally, we emphasize that the emerging trends of risk assessment of climate change, encompass leveraging the concept of telecoupling, harnessing the potential of geography, and developing early warning mechanisms.

Climate change risks to biodiversity and ecosystem: key insights, modeling approaches, and emerging strategies.

At the heart of the polycrisis debate is the struggle to grapple with both the scientific and political uncertainties of the Anthropocene. The struggles over what to do about the polycrisis are thus found at the intersection of science and politics. We must approach the polycrisis as simultaneously a scientific and political challenge. To do so we propose that the polycrisis project adopts the methods of decision-making under deep uncertainty as a way to integrate and encourage collaborations between the scientific and policy worlds.

The polycrisis concept points to the interaction of multiple global crises and, arguably, to the difficulties in grasping the current moment with conceptual clarity. While Lawrence et al. emphasize the causal relations between crises in multiple global systems to define and operationalize the concept, we argue that they underestimate the politics of knowledge claims about the polycrisis, from the concept's performative function, from the normative claims it enacts or enables, and from the program of action that it carries or implies. We argue instead that at the heart of the polycrisis debate is the struggle to grapple with the (deep) uncertainties – both scientific and political – of the Anthropocene. Polycrisis is found operating at the intersection of science and politics where claims to scientific knowledge and political value, and scientific and political judgements, collide. Dealing with the uncertainties of the polycrisis is thus a matter of scientific methodological conundrum and a matter of political judgement and decision. We then propose that the polycrisis research program adopts decision-making under deep uncertainty methods to reach its objectives of improving policy outcomes, but also to better navigate what we call the uncertainty possibility space of the polycrisis.

The polycrisis is a struggle to grapple with the uncertainties of the Anthropocene which demands a new policy approach.

The research paper studies business sophistication, tax revenue policies, and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) performance across 105 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries spanning from 2013 to 2021. Key insights from the study underscore a positive association between business sophistication and ESG performance. This suggests that organizations leveraging advanced knowledge and innovation are better positioned to implement effective ESG strategies. Moreover, higher tax revenue is linked to better ESG, underlining a commitment to sustainability within the business landscape. Notably, Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) emerges as a pivotal catalyst in augmenting ESG performance, particularly when integrated with business sophistication and tax revenue mechanisms.

This study examines the relationship between business sophistication, tax revenue policies, and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) performance in 105 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries from 2013 to 2021, focusing on the moderating role of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT). Using advanced econometric methods like Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS), two-step Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), and fixed-effect regression, the research also considers factors such as microfinance institutions, commercial bank financing, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings reveal a significant positive link between business sophistication and ESG performance, indicating that companies with advanced knowledge and innovation are more likely to implement successful ESG policies. Higher tax revenue is also positively correlated with ESG improvements, reflecting support for sustainability. ICT is crucial in enhancing ESG performance, especially when combined with business sophistication and tax revenue. Microfinance and commercial banking are vital in promoting ESG practices in BRI countries. Despite a temporary decline in ESG performance due to COVID-19, the study predicts a post-pandemic resurgence, emphasizing the need to foster an innovation culture for sustainable development.

There is a positive association between business sophistication, tax revenues, microfinance, ICT, and commercial banking, which are key drivers of better ESG performance in BRI countries.

Transdisciplinary sustainability scientists work with many different actors in pursuit of change. In so doing they make choices about why and how to engage with different perspectives in their research. Reflexivity – active individual and collective critical reflection – is considered an important capacity for researchers to address the resulting ethical and practical challenges. We developed a framework for reflexivity as a transformative capacity in sustainability science through a critical systems approach, which helps make any decisions that influence which perspectives are included or excluded in research explicit. We suggest that transdisciplinary sustainability research can become more transformative by nurturing reflexivity.

Transdisciplinary sustainability science is increasingly applied to study transformative change. Yet, transdisciplinary research involves diverse actors who hold contrasting and sometimes conflicting perspectives and worldviews. Reflexivity is cited as a crucial capacity for navigating the resulting challenges, yet notions of reflexivity are often focused on individual researcher reflections that lack explicit links to the collective transdisciplinary research process and predominant modes of inquiry in the field. This gap presents the risk that reflexivity remains on the periphery of sustainability science and becomes ‘unreflexive’, as crucial dimensions are left unacknowledged. Our objective was to establish a framework for reflexivity as a transformative capacity in sustainability science through a critical systems approach. We developed and refined the framework through a rapid scoping review of literature on transdisciplinarity, transformation, and reflexivity, and reflection on a scenario study in the Red River Basin (US, Canada). The framework characterizes reflexivity as the capacity to nurture a dynamic, embedded, and collective process of self-scrutiny and mutual learning in service of transformative change, which manifests through interacting boundary processes – boundary delineation, interaction, and transformation. The case study reflection suggests how embedding this framework in research can expose boundary processes that block transformation and nurture more reflexive and transformative research.

Transdisciplinary sustainability research may become more transformative by nurturing reflexivity as a dynamic, embedded, and collective learning process.