Callum Munday, Richard Washington, Sebastian Engelstaedter, Marcia Zilli, Sophie Harbord, Charles Knight, Kitty Attwood, Neil Hart
{"title":"Southern African Climate Change: Processes, Models, and Projections","authors":"Callum Munday, Richard Washington, Sebastian Engelstaedter, Marcia Zilli, Sophie Harbord, Charles Knight, Kitty Attwood, Neil Hart","doi":"10.1002/wcc.70025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70025","url":null,"abstract":"Southern Africa, along with the Mediterranean and eastern South America, is one of three major land regions projected to dry in the future. Confidence in the drying trend relies on a clear understanding of the regional climate and evaluation of the climate models used for projections. This paper reviews our understanding of southern African climate and evaluates the performance of successive climate model generations. A key finding is improved confidence in projections of early summer drying. The drying results from a delayed seasonal cycle, with regional features such as the Congo Air Boundary and heat lows increasing in frequency in the future. Future drying is matched by emerging observed trends indicating large temperature increases and drying in early summer, in addition to projections of increases in extreme rainfall, heatwaves, and dry spells. There is greater uncertainty in climate changes in the core rainy season (December to February), in part due to systematic climate model biases in this season, which have worsened through model generations. Model biases are compounded by a lack of in situ observations of key regional climate features, including heat lows, tropical lows, and mesoscale convective systems. The review recommends a focus on quantifying changes in circulation features and rainfall systems, which are well known but lack comprehensive assessment of trends and future projections. The future of tropical cyclone risk is a priority, especially given the increase in the frequency of intense tropical cyclones in the Mozambique Channel over the last 40 years.This article is categorized under: <jats:list list-type=\"simple\"> <jats:list-item>Paleoclimates and Current Trends > Modern Climate Change</jats:list-item> </jats:list>","PeriodicalId":501019,"journal":{"name":"WIREs Climate Change","volume":"122 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145260581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dominik Collet, Sam White, Scott Bremer, Brita Brenna, Håkon Glørstad, Ingar Mørkestøl Gundersen, Heli Huhtamaa, Kirstin Krüger, Hans W. Linderholm, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Astrid E. J. Ogilvie, Helene Løvstrand Svarva, Bergsveinn Þórsson
{"title":"The Little Ice Age: The History and Future of a Traveling Concept","authors":"Dominik Collet, Sam White, Scott Bremer, Brita Brenna, Håkon Glørstad, Ingar Mørkestøl Gundersen, Heli Huhtamaa, Kirstin Krüger, Hans W. Linderholm, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Astrid E. J. Ogilvie, Helene Løvstrand Svarva, Bergsveinn Þórsson","doi":"10.1002/wcc.70023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70023","url":null,"abstract":"First coined in the 1930s, with reference to glaciation in North America, the concept of the “Little Ice Age” has undergone continuous revisions. It has traveled academically from glaciology to climatology, archeology, history, and, most recently, climate communication. Over time, it has grown into one of the most discussed topics in the field of climate history and attracts both considerable scholarly interest and public attention. The term “Little Ice Age” has been criticized for oversimplifying climatic change, focusing too much on temperature, and excluding possible effects on humans. Yet it remains a powerful “boundary object” in interdisciplinary cooperation, science communication, and the “environing” of history. In this sense, it serves similar functions as other concepts in the field of human–environment interactions, such as “global warming” or “climate resilience.” This article investigates the contested history and the potential uses of the “Little Ice Age” concept. It explores how the concept encourages interdisciplinary consilience, global perspectives, and public debate. In summary, these aspects are connected and contrasted to the use of similar concepts, such as “climate resilience” and “tipping points” in the sphere of climate–society interactions.This article is categorized under: <jats:list list-type=\"simple\"> <jats:list-item>Climate, History, Society, Culture > Major Historical Eras</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Learning from Cases and Analogies</jats:list-item> </jats:list>","PeriodicalId":501019,"journal":{"name":"WIREs Climate Change","volume":"75 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145203101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Gabriel S. Hofmann, Eliseu J. Weber, Vinicius Augusto Galvão Bastazini, Davi R. Rossatto, Augusto C. Franco, Camille E. Granada, Lucas A. Kaminski, Flávio K. Ubaid, Victor Leandro‐Silva, Márcio Borges‐Martins, Rafael C. Silva, Manoel F. Cardoso, Luiz F. B. Oliveira, Francisco E. Aquino, Maria J. R. Pereira
{"title":"Climate Change in the Brazilian Cerrado: A Looming Threat to Terrestrial Biodiversity","authors":"Gabriel S. Hofmann, Eliseu J. Weber, Vinicius Augusto Galvão Bastazini, Davi R. Rossatto, Augusto C. Franco, Camille E. Granada, Lucas A. Kaminski, Flávio K. Ubaid, Victor Leandro‐Silva, Márcio Borges‐Martins, Rafael C. Silva, Manoel F. Cardoso, Luiz F. B. Oliveira, Francisco E. Aquino, Maria J. R. Pereira","doi":"10.1002/wcc.70022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70022","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past 5000 years, the predictable climate seasonality of the Brazilian Cerrado has played a crucial role in shaping the life history strategies of species and the structure of ecological communities of this global biodiversity hotspot. However, this biome is becoming hotter and drier, with a notable lengthening and intensification of the dry season. Declining rainfall results from three key factors: the expansion of the South Atlantic Subtropical Anticyclone, warming of northern tropical Atlantic waters, and reduced evapotranspiration during the dry season due to widespread land conversion. The evapotranspiration drop also plays a pivotal role in regional warming and higher vapor pressure deficit. Climatic change already affects the physiology, phenology, and reproduction of the Cerrado plants, while also driving community‐level alterations, such as woody encroachment and ant–plant–herbivore interaction outcomes. Dry season lengthening is likely to reduce the biomass and alter the dynamics of microbial communities, with negative effects also extending to invertebrates and other groups. The pronounced warming reduces the amount and duration of dewfall, an important water source for insect pollinators and other animals with low vagility during periods of drought. Concerning vertebrates, the most suggested impact is the loss of specialist or endemic species, with restricted distributions, and the expansion of generalist species, lowering the levels of β‐ and γ‐diversity across the region and making communities poorer and more homogenized. In summary, climate change is actively reshaping Cerrado communities, and species' survival will largely depend on their phenotypic plasticity, evolutionary response, and dispersal capabilities.This article is categorized under: <jats:list list-type=\"simple\"> <jats:list-item>Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Observed Impacts of Climate Change</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Climate, Ecology, and Conservation > Observed Ecological Changes</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Trans‐disciplinary Perspectives > Regional Reviews</jats:list-item> </jats:list>","PeriodicalId":501019,"journal":{"name":"WIREs Climate Change","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145203104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lessons for Nature‐Based Carbon Removal: Learning From the Politics of Environmental Conservation","authors":"Scott Freeman","doi":"10.1002/wcc.70024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70024","url":null,"abstract":"Climate models and policy makers suggest that in order to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement, large‐scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches is a critical complement to aggressive decarbonization of the global economy. Recent proposed guidance from the UNFCCC suggests that nature‐based—rather than engineered—approaches to carbon removal are safer and proven. Such guidance presumes that tree‐planting and coastal restoration, for example, do not have negative social impacts. The history of similar interventions in the conservation field suggests several substantial social and justice considerations. Critical conservation scholarship has highlighted the potential negative social consequences of interventions such as protected areas and widescale tree‐planting. Mainstream conservation has, in some cases, ignored the social relations that are present in areas of environmental interventions. This has created a variety of issues, including displacement, economic marginalization, and the erasure of indigenous peoples and local communities. Nature‐based CDR shares and draws on a number of assumptions and policies of environmental conservation, specifically ignoring the social relations connecting people and environments. The carbon removal field can learn from critical conservation scholarship to offer a more effective and just model of carbon removal.This article is categorized under: <jats:list list-type=\"simple\"> <jats:list-item>The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Sociology/Anthropology of Climate Knowledge</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Climate, Ecology, and Conservation > Conservation Strategies</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Policy and Governance > International Policy Framework</jats:list-item> </jats:list>","PeriodicalId":501019,"journal":{"name":"WIREs Climate Change","volume":"119 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145182845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Banking for Climate Change: South Asia Initiatives","authors":"Rachita Gulati, Dil B. Rahut, Sunil Kumar","doi":"10.1002/wcc.70021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70021","url":null,"abstract":"Climate change and its associated risks are gaining attention from regulatory authorities in the banking sector. Climate‐related risks can significantly affect banks' lending behaviors, investment decisions, and operational practices, ultimately affecting their stability. As banks play a crucial role in fulfilling financing needs, including climate financing and confronting this global challenge, their actions make a significant difference. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the implications of climate change and the critical role banks play in mitigating its adverse effects on their business activities and safeguarding their stability. This study delves into these issues and focuses on whether central banks effectively devise or reformulate regulatory measures to ensure transparency and disclosure of sustainable practices, climate risks, and other climate‐related financial information, especially in South Asian countries. Transparency in sustainable and climate change practices is crucial as banks hold social responsibility. Further, the paper also sheds light on climate finance initiatives and bank compliance with revived frameworks in South Asia. The article concludes by offering relevant policy drawings to enhance banks' disclosure of climate‐related information.This article is categorized under: <jats:list list-type=\"simple\"> <jats:list-item>Climate Economics > Economics and Climate Change</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Policy and Governance > Governing Climate Change in Communities, Cities, and Regions</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Policy and Governance > National Climate Change Policy</jats:list-item> </jats:list>","PeriodicalId":501019,"journal":{"name":"WIREs Climate Change","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145140734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mathias Venning, Neha Mittal, Scott Bremer, Marta Bruno Soares
{"title":"Mapping the Demand, Development, and Delivery of Climate Services in the Greater Horn of Africa","authors":"Mathias Venning, Neha Mittal, Scott Bremer, Marta Bruno Soares","doi":"10.1002/wcc.70020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70020","url":null,"abstract":"Numerous research and development projects seek to improve climate services in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA). However, we do not sufficiently understand how key elements of climate service production are currently engaged with. To address this evidence gap, we systematically review academic and gray literature collected via an extensive database search to understand the status of the demand, development, and delivery of climate services in the GHA. We take stock of climate services at sub‐seasonal and seasonal time scales for different sectors and across geographical scales. We find that Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda have been spatially prioritized across the GHA in the deployment of climate services by research projects and development programmes. Sectorally, agriculture has received a particular focus. We also find that there remain significant barriers to the usefulness and usability of services, including now common problems of timeliness, access, communication, relevance, and accuracy. Increasingly, initiatives have sought to tailor and communicate information through knowledge co‐production with some success, but issues of extent and sustainability suggest continued caution. Finally, we discuss key lessons learned regarding the governance, assumptions, and modes of knowledge production that underpin the current landscape of climate services in the GHA. Climate service demand, development, and delivery across the GHA is complex and richly heterogenous. It is only by engaging a plurality of actors and knowledge systems through a coordinated and transparent research agenda that climate services can be meaningfully attuned to the demand‐needs of those they are meant to serve.This article is categorized under: <jats:list list-type=\"simple\"> <jats:list-item>The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Climate Science and Decision Making</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Trans‐disciplinary Perspectives > Regional Reviews</jats:list-item> </jats:list>","PeriodicalId":501019,"journal":{"name":"WIREs Climate Change","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145117006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bindi V. Shah, Bethan C. O'Leary, K. Rejula, Paul Kemp, K. M. Sandhya, V. R. Madhu, Nikita Gopal
{"title":"Adaptation Strategies of Small‐Scale Marine Fisheries in Response to Climate Change, Resource Changes, and Sudden Systemic Shocks","authors":"Bindi V. Shah, Bethan C. O'Leary, K. Rejula, Paul Kemp, K. M. Sandhya, V. R. Madhu, Nikita Gopal","doi":"10.1002/wcc.70019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70019","url":null,"abstract":"Biodiversity loss and climate change threaten global food security and the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Fish is considered important for combating malnutrition globally and small‐scale fisheries are vital to the marine wild capture industry, supporting livelihoods and well‐being. With many marine small‐scale fishing communities experiencing the effects of climatic and resource changes on subsistence, income, and well‐being, it is important to understand what adaptation strategies might help these communities thrive. Through a review of scientific literature, we identified short‐term coping and long‐term adaptive strategies employed around the world to reduce local vulnerability and improve resilience to climate change, resource changes, and sudden systemic shocks such as COVID‐19. However, most reported strategies examined only fishers (82.6%) rather than those involved in fish processing. Coping strategies to minimize vulnerability dominated documented responses (67.7%) rather than longer‐term adaptive strategies. Fishers initiated most coping strategies themselves (88.9%); adaptive strategies were more likely to rely on external actors (53.8%). Findings underscored the relative importance of two social factors that influenced whether specific strategies were adopted or not: social organization (formal and informal social networks between individuals, communities, and institutions) and assets (financial, technological, informational, and natural capital). We argue that mobilization of these networks and resources requires agency, which is shaped by inequalities within communities. Given the intensifying effects of climate change and potential for societal shocks, we urge researchers and practitioners to support communities through locally relevant longer‐term adaptation strategies that address the full fishery from catch to processing chains.This article is categorized under: <jats:list list-type=\"simple\"> <jats:list-item>Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Learning from Cases and Analogies</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Institutions for Adaptation</jats:list-item> </jats:list>","PeriodicalId":501019,"journal":{"name":"WIREs Climate Change","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145072051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yingshan Lau, Miles Kenney‐Lazar, Shakura N. Bashir, Robert Cole, Dixon T. Gevaña, Janice Lee, Danny Marks, Michelle A. Miller, Yunrui Ren, David Taylor, Yuchuan Zhou
{"title":"Challenges in Forest Carbon Governance: Insights From Southeast Asia","authors":"Yingshan Lau, Miles Kenney‐Lazar, Shakura N. Bashir, Robert Cole, Dixon T. Gevaña, Janice Lee, Danny Marks, Michelle A. Miller, Yunrui Ren, David Taylor, Yuchuan Zhou","doi":"10.1002/wcc.70018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70018","url":null,"abstract":"Meeting global climate change mitigation targets will require enhanced nature‐based carbon sequestration, in which forest carbon schemes play a major role. This is despite criticisms of forest carbon schemes' efficacy, social impacts, and downgrading of other forest functions and services. Against this backdrop, we reviewed existing social science research on the governance of terrestrial forest carbon schemes in Southeast Asia, a forest‐rich region with high deforestation rates that is in many respects representative of the wider tropics. Our narrative review focused on four themes: (i) finance and the political economy; (ii) knowledge; (iii) implementation; and (iv) inclusivity, equity, and justice for local communities. We found that forest carbon schemes have been unable to compete with large‐scale drivers of deforestation, tend to privilege scientific and expert knowledge in relation to carbon accounting and geospatial analyses, are significantly limited by national and local governance issues, and have often not provided the intended benefits for local communities. The literature reviewed largely focuses on donor‐supported and project‐scale REDD+. However, forest carbon governance is rapidly changing. We thus make the case for a governance research agenda that focuses on jurisdictional approaches, increasing levels of private sector investment, the diversification of forest interventions, and efforts to restore the legitimacy of forest carbon credits. These directions for future research are essential for ensuring that forest carbon schemes contribute to effective climate change mitigation and the conservation of forest ecosystems in just and equitable ways that benefit local communities in Southeast Asia and tropical latitudes more widely.This article is categorized under: <jats:list list-type=\"simple\"> <jats:list-item>Policy and Governance > Multilevel and Transnational Climate Change Governance</jats:list-item> </jats:list>","PeriodicalId":501019,"journal":{"name":"WIREs Climate Change","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144910830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jonathan Tollefson, Scott Frickel, Christina Gore, Jennifer Helgeson
{"title":"Community Resilience Planning: What New Methods Reveal About the Formation and Transformation of a Field","authors":"Jonathan Tollefson, Scott Frickel, Christina Gore, Jennifer Helgeson","doi":"10.1002/wcc.70015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70015","url":null,"abstract":"Community resilience planning (CRP) research encompasses diverse disciplinary foci, ranging from ecological and sociopolitical to engineering studies, and employs a range of analytic scales and methodologies. Despite the rise of integrative approaches to studying increasingly complex risks faced by communities—in particular, the growing, and often inequitable, impacts of climate and weather stressors and extremes—CRP remains a fragmented field of study and practice. This paper provides a broad map of the CRP field over the last 25 years, linking bibliometric methods with novel, network‐based, multilevel approaches to computational text analysis. Despite trends toward interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, our analysis demonstrates that the CRP field consists of divergent bodies of research, characteristic of disciplinary siloing. At the same time, new approaches to computational text analysis provide innovative ways to understand the epistemic and social links across subfields, revealing patterns of connectivity that traditional citation‐based bibliometric methods cannot access. Results indicate that the development and maturation of CRP are characterized in part by a longitudinal transformation in research methods and by a shift in substantive questions that CRP researchers are asking. These findings suggest that thematic and credit‐based structures operate in tandem to produce complex webs of interconnection across the disciplinary domains that have historically constituted the field.This article is categorized under: <jats:list list-type=\"simple\"> <jats:list-item>Policy and Governance > Governing Climate Change in Communities, Cities, and Regions</jats:list-item> </jats:list>","PeriodicalId":501019,"journal":{"name":"WIREs Climate Change","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144850895","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rolando García: Refugee, Radical, Climate's Attorney at Law","authors":"Robert Luke Naylor","doi":"10.1002/wcc.70013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70013","url":null,"abstract":"With a few exceptions, the history of climate studies is currently dominated by work on scientists from North America and Europe, often those with stable socio‐economic backgrounds and uncontroversial or unstated political beliefs. The story of Rolando Victor García Boutigue (1919–2012) is a precious example of how a radical scholar from South America responded to the emergence of climate discussion in the 1970s. Having grown up in a poor household in Argentina, García was thrown out of his undergraduate studies due to his student union activities in 1943. He then worked for Argentina's National Weather Service, through which he was able to study meteorology in the United States under Jörgen Holmboe. He returned to Argentina to become the Dean of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, but left again in 1966 after being physically attacked by police under orders of a right‐wing military coup. Following a move to Geneva, he became the director of joint planning staff at the Global Atmospheric Research Programme. In 1976, he was appointed to lead a substantial project investigating the impacts of early 1970s climate anomalies under the auspices of the International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Study, leading to the publication of <jats:italic>Nature Pleads Not Guilty</jats:italic> (1981), which laid a considerable portion of the blame for severe famines at the feet of US policy and the functioning of international food markets. García also became a noted philosopher, and his philosophical leanings had an important influence on his work on climate and vice versa.This article is categorized under: <jats:list list-type=\"simple\"> <jats:list-item>Climate, History, Society, Culture > Thought Leaders</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Climate, History, Society, Culture > World Historical Perspectives</jats:list-item> <jats:list-item>Climate and Development > Social Justice and the Politics of Development</jats:list-item> </jats:list>","PeriodicalId":501019,"journal":{"name":"WIREs Climate Change","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144622294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}