Climate change and health

A transformative experience at the University Scholars Leadership Symposium 2024

Posted on February 17, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The University Scholars Leadership Symposium is an annual event organised by Humanitarian Affairs Asia, dedicated to empowering and inspiring young leaders to develop innovative solutions for pressing global challenges. In 2024, the 12th edition of the event took place at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok, Thailand, from August 6th to 9th. The symposium brought together 500 delegates from 47 countries, and I was honoured to be among them. As a Master’s student in Global Environmental Challenges at the Cabot Institute, I am deeply grateful to the institute for introducing me to this opportunity and enabling me to participate in such an enriching experience.

Attending this prestigious event was both immersive and inspiring. It was a week filled with discussions on global issues and how we, as emerging leaders, can contribute to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each day offered opportunities to attend talks on a wide range of topics, including water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), digital inclusion, female genital mutilation (FGM), elephant conservation, and refugee crises.

What made many of the talks particularly compelling were the speakers themselves—individuals actively working to make positive changes in communities around the world. Their stories, often rooted in personal experiences, were powerful and motivating.

One talk that stood out to me was by Shomy Hasan, a young woman from Bangladesh. After losing her mother to diarrhoea, she became a passionate advocate for WASH issues. “I find it unacceptable that people die from a preventable disease,” she said. Shomy went on to co-found Awareness 360, a non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering young individuals to lead community service projects aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Another inspiring story was shared by Sangduen Lek, who overcame significant obstacles in her remote Thai village to protect maltreated elephants by founding the Save Elephant Foundation. Her perseverance highlights the impact one determined individual can have on wildlife conservation. Similarly, Jack Growden’s story stood out—after donating his laptop to a school, he now leads a digital equity charity that has transformed the lives of over 200,000 students across Asia-Pacific and Australia by providing repurposed computers to schools.

The symposium also included an informative session on the global refugee crisis, delivered by Dunya Khan from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. This talk deepened my understanding of the complex reasons that force people to flee their countries, highlighting the importance of combating prejudice against migrants and refugees.

Inspiring and authentic, Ifrah Ahmed is a survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Somalia, and her story even inspired a movie. In her fight against FGM, she emphasised the importance of understanding the cultural context when engaging with communities. Her message was clear: effective communication and partnerships must be built on respect, humility, and honesty.

The breaks between talks offered valuable opportunities to exchange ideas and network with other delegates. It was very interesting to meet students from every continent, each bringing diverse academic backgrounds and perspectives. While some expressed concerns about lacking direct experience in certain areas, I believe every field of study has a role in driving positive change. The diverse skills and knowledge we contribute can help create a more just and sustainable world.

A highlight of the symposium for me was our visit to a refugee camp and school in a community near the border with Myanmar. The refugees we met were Karen people from Myanmar, a country currently embroiled in civil conflict. Interacting with the children, learning about their culture, and playing with them was heartwarming and eye-opening. As an environmental engineer, I was particularly struck by the severe water and sanitation challenges faced by the community—no access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and poor waste management, all exacerbated by precarious housing conditions. Despite the language barrier, we found ways to communicate and connect, and I was reminded of the striking similarities between this refugee camp and rural communities in Brazil. The struggles may be similar, but so too are the generosity and hospitality of the people.

These are the very issues I study, and seeing them firsthand in the refugee camp reinforced the importance of my work. In settings like these, both children and adults are at heightened risk of diseases due to the lack of basic services. This experience has deepened my commitment to improving the living conditions in deprived communities and inspired me to continue my research on environmental engineering controls to prevent leptospirosis in Brazilian slums. Witnessing how inadequate WASH services directly impact health underscores the urgency of my work, and motivates me to find solutions that can make a tangible difference in similar communities around the world.

This incredible experience reinforced several lessons for me. Even if it sounds cliché, there is hope, and together, we can create a better world. It will never be a cliché until we achieve a society characterised by justice, environmental sustainability, and social and gender equality.

————————–

This blog was written by Ana Maria Silva, an MScR student on the Cabot Institute’s MScR in Global Environmental Challenges. Ana Maria’s research is on leptospirosis transmission in slums in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, developing and evaluating a tool to understand the impact of environmental engineering infrastructure. Ana Maria is supervised by Professor Guy Howard and Dr Rodolfo Bezerra Nobrega.

If you would like to learn more about the MScR in Global Environmental Challenges, please contact the Cabot Institute PGR team on cabot-pgr@bristol.ac.uk.

Postgraduate learnings from the University Scholar’s Leadership Symposium

Posted on February 17, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Pursuing a PhD is a journey mostly about academic brain shaping, building your academic argument through literature, and finding your unique contribution to the research community. Believe me, that is amazing! However, doctoral students are often overshadowed by achieving daily tasks, scrutinizing data and information, building intellectual narratives, and most times forgetting why they started pursuing the PhD in the first place.

What is often overlooked, but is profoundly important, are the opportunities given to postgraduate research students outside their research spaces that link to their passions and personal abilities to positively contribute to change. We have different stories, experiences, and backgrounds but nothing compares to sitting in a room with fellow young people with a shared goal of being change-makers, while listening and speaking to people who have taken the steps towards that direction. As a Ugandan girl, who at 20 years old had a justified reason to leave school for good but is now a PhD student, I found myself in a room as a delegate representing the University of Bristol at the 12th University Scholar’s Leadership Symposium held at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok, Thailand! What are the odds?!

It was a remarkable opportunity to watch keynote speakers from different career paths share their life experiences, lessons, ambitions, challenges, and the odds they had to defy to be part of the spinning wheel of global change. From one amazing woman, Ifra Ahmed, founder of Ifra Foundation sharing her story of protecting women’s sexuality in our African communities, running for asylum in a foreign country to Prof Peter Mathieson, Principal and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Edinburgh emphasizing the need for: compassionate leadership, team building, learning from past mistakes as a leader, seeking advice from people who have walked the journey, leveraging on our networks, and looking for opportunities to be part of the voices of change.

As David James Begbie, Founder of Crossroads Foundation said, “The hardest job for a person willing to make change is not to attain education or expertise in a specific field or lobby for money to drive the process but rather to change people’s hearts to make them care, have compassion and empathy to commit to a mission of making this world a better place.”

It was clear to me that being a change-maker is about one’s willingness to offer their knowledge, skills, creativity, time, and uniqueness to the world and the places that need it the most. Humanity, compassion, and empathy are far more affordable than education and it takes one commitment for a person to have them.

Watching prestigious and influential people in different capacities talk about their journeys to enact change made me realize that nothing is impossible if we explore new ideas. As a current leader, this opportunity showed me ways in which I can be more compassionate and empathetic towards people I work with and those I am privileged to lead. I realized the importance of listening and appreciating different experiences through people’s voices and ideas. Transformational leadership can start with a small circle and a small cause to create change.

As someone from a background of hopelessness, once on the verge of giving up on the pursuit of my ambition and now a first-generation student in a foreign country I never imagined to be in, this opportunity affirmed the possibility of me pushing boundaries and becoming the beacon of hope to all the girls and women in my home country and community. I believe that rich or poor, famous or unknown, sophisticated or not, we all have a time marker on earth, and we ought to make the most of it. I will start by changing one life at a time.

I extend my profound gratitude to the Cabot Institute for Environment for granting me the opportunity to represent the University of Bristol at the 12^th University Scholars Leadership Symposium.

——————————-

This blog was written by Ritah Pavin Nakanjako, a PhD student in the Climate Change and Health research group. Ritah’s PhD research is on the effectiveness of passive heat adaptation strategies in low-income housing communities in South Africa and Ghana. Ritah is supervised by Professor Guy Howard and Dr Eunice Lo.

Can aching joints really predict the weather? Exploring the science behind the stormy debate

Posted on February 7, 2025February 7, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

umbrellas

For centuries, people have claimed that their aching joints can predict changes in the weather, often reporting increased discomfort before rain or cold fronts. Given the scale and duration, there is a sense of legitimacy to these anecdotes – but this phenomenon remains scientifically contentious.

From shifts in barometric pressure to temperature fluctuations, many theories attempt to explain how environmental factors might influence joint pain. But is there an anatomical basis for this claim, or is it simply an enduring weather-related myth? Are our joints any more reliable than the Met Office?

At the heart of this debate lies barometric pressure, also known as atmospheric pressure – the force exerted by air molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere. While invisible, air has mass, and the “weight” pressing down on us fluctuates with altitude and weather systems.

Higher barometric pressure often signals fair-weather conditions with clear skies and calm winds, whereas lower pressure typically precedes unsettled weather, such as cloudy skies, precipitation and humidity.

Moveable joints are intricate structures cushioned by synovial fluid, the viscous liquid that lubricates joints, and encased in capsules rich in nerve endings. In healthy joints, these components should allow smooth, pain-free movement. However, when joints are compromised by cartilage damage (as in osteoarthritis) or inflammation (as in rheumatoid arthritis), even subtle changes in the environment may be acutely felt.

One leading hypothesis suggests that changes in barometric pressure may directly influence joint discomfort. When atmospheric pressure drops ahead of storms, it can allow inflamed tissues within joints to expand slightly, increasing stress on surrounding nerves and amplifying pain. Conversely, rapid increases in pressure, characteristic of fair-weather systems, may compress already sensitive tissues, leading to discomfort in some people.

Scientific studies offer some support for these claims, though results remain mixed. For instance, a 2007 study published in the American Journal of Medicine found a slight but significant correlation between dropping barometric pressure and increased knee pain in osteoarthritis patients. However, this pattern is not universally observed across all joint conditions.

A 2011 systematic review in Arthritis Research & Therapy examined the relationship between weather and pain in rheumatoid arthritis patients. It revealed highly variable responses: while some people reported increased pain under low-pressure conditions, others noted no change. A few even experienced discomfort during high-pressure fronts.

More recently, a [2019 citizen-science project] called Cloudy with a chance of pain used app-based pain tracking to explore this connection. The study found a modest association between falling pressure and heightened joint pain, but it also highlighted substantial individual differences in how people perceive weather-related pain.

These findings suggest that while changes in barometric pressure may influence joint pain for some, responses are far from uniform and depend on a complex interplay of factors, including the individual’s underlying joint condition and overall pain sensitivity.

Why responses differ

Barometric pressure rarely acts in isolation. Fluctuations in temperature and humidity often accompany pressure changes, complicating the picture.

Cold weather can have a pronounced effect on joints, particularly in people with existing joint conditions. Low temperatures cause muscles to contract and become stiffer, which can lead to reduced flexibility and a greater risk of strain or discomfort.

Ligaments, which connect bones to one another, and tendons, which anchor muscles to bones, may also lose some of their elasticity in colder conditions. This decreased pliability can make joint movement feel more restricted and exacerbate pain in conditions like arthritis.

Cold weather can also cause blood vessels to narrow — particularly in the extremities, as the body prioritises maintaining core temperature. This reduced blood flow can deprive affected areas of essential oxygen and nutrients, slowing the removal of metabolic waste products like lactic acid, which may accumulate in tissues and exacerbate inflammation and discomfort.

For people with inflammatory conditions, the reduced circulation can aggravate swelling and stiffness, especially in small joints like those in the fingers and toes.

Cold also slows the activity of synovial fluid. In lower temperatures, the fluid becomes less effective at reducing friction, which can heighten joint stiffness and make motion more painful, particularly for people with degenerative conditions such as osteoarthritis.

Sudden temperature changes may also play a role. Rapid shifts can challenge the body’s ability to adapt, which might worsen pain in people with chronic conditions. Similarly, high humidity can intensify sensations of heat or dampness in already inflamed areas, further complicating the experience of pain.

However, isolating a single variable – whether humidity, temperature or pressure –proves difficult because of the interplay of overlapping factors.

Responses to weather also depend on individual factors, including the extent of joint damage, overall pain sensitivity and psychological expectations. This variability makes it difficult to link a single meteorological factor to a biological response.

Still, the evidence suggests that people with joint conditions tend to be more attuned to environmental changes, particularly pressure fluctuations.

While the relationship between weather and joint pain remains an imperfect science, the collective evidence indicates that there may be some truth to the age-old belief. For those with chronic joint conditions, shifts in barometric pressure and accompanying weather changes might indeed serve as nature’s warning system – albeit one that’s far from foolproof.

————————–

This blog is written by Michelle Spear, Professor of Anatomy, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Lobbying in ‘forever chemicals’ industry is rife across Europe – the inside story of our investigation

Posted on January 22, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Forever chemical or PFAS contamination is widespread, but so too are lobbying efforts.
Melnikov Dmitriy/Shutterstock

A team of academic researchers, lawyers and journalists from 16 European countries has exposed a huge lobbying campaign aimed at gutting a proposed EU-wide restriction on the use of “forever chemicals”. This campaign saw significant increases in the lobbying expenditure of major producers of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), known as forever chemicals for their persistence in the environment.

This expenditure supported many high-level meetings with European Commission officials, as well as efforts to mobilise other industry players in the lobbying campaign to promote voluntary alternatives and substantial exceptions to this proposed restriction. One result was that the European Chemical Agency’s public consultation on the restriction was buried under a deluge of responses to its proposal.

PFAS are a family of thousands of synthetic chemicals that are implicated in a growing number of illnesses and health complications – ranging from liver damage to compromised immune systems. They share a common characteristic: a carbon-fluorine bond – one of the strongest in organic chemistry – which makes PFAS highly persistent, meaning they can bioaccumulate within plants and animals over time.

The sheer number of PFAS means that restricting them as a class, as is being considered by the EU, is regarded as vital by a growing number of scientists . If this proposed restriction fails and PFAS emissions remain unrestricted, the cost of cleaning up ongoing contamination in Europe is estimated to run to €2 trillion (£1.7 trillion) over the next 20 years – an annual bill of €100 billion.

Without a class restriction, the alternative is a case-by-case approach to assessing toxicity. This would not only be very slow, it would increase the risk of just swapping banned PFAS for other ones that haven’t yet been proven to cause harm – known as “regrettable substitution”.

Historically, banning individual PFAS chemicals has led to their replacement with structurally similar compounds that pose similar or unknown risks. A class-based restriction would reduce the likelihood of such substitutions.

As part of a Europe-wide investigation into PFAS called the Forever Lobbying Project, I have been collaborating with 18 academic researchers and lawyers plus 46 investigative journalists, including Stéphane Horel and Raphaëlle Aubert at French newspaper Le Monde, which coordinated the project. By working together, we can reach a much larger audience across Europe and increase awareness of the costs of PFAS to public health and the environment.

Revelations of the major lobbying campaign and the clean-up costs – the first estimate of its kind for Europe – have come out of this collaboration. Our work has been an inventive combination of investigative journalism and social and applied science methodologies, which aim to extend and underpin existing reporting techniques.

labcoat arm shakes arm in dark suit — A new investigation drew on approaches used to measure lobbies in the fossil fuel and tobacco industry.
Ian Hayhurst/Shutterstock

In 2023, many members of the current team had previously mapped PFAS contamination across Europe, making “unseen science” available to the public for the first time. This first investigation, which identified over 23,000 confirmed contaminated sites, was hugely influential, strengthening calls for the current class-based, EU-wide restriction.

But resistance from chemical manufacturers quickly proved to be fierce. And it was the realisation among journalists within the consortium that the chemical industry might defeat the proposed class-based restriction that kickstarted the idea for this latest investigation into the lobbying campaign.

The cost of policy failure

Two questions are central to making sense of the lobbying campaign for the public. What would the bill be for cleaning up ongoing PFAS pollution if the campaign is successful? And how had the PFAS manufacturers and plastics industry been able to make so much headway with European officials?

The annual cost estimate of €100 billion was one of several calculated – it relates to ongoing clean-up costs in Europe in the absence of effective restrictions and source control. The process of calculating the costs was overseen by environmental engineer Ali Ling and environmental chemist Hans Peter Arp, who developed a methodology with data journalist Aubert. Together, they advised journalists within the team on which data to look for and actively checked datasets.

The annual cost figure is large – roughly the GDP of Bulgaria – yet represents a conservative estimate, reflecting the difficulties in addressing PFAS decontamination. PFAS chemicals escape most traditional remediation techniques and require highly specialised, energy-intensive technologies to eradicate them. This annual cost will continue as long as PFAS are not phased out and continue to accumulate in the environment.

The lobbying campaign essentially rested on three contentions: that most PFAS were not harmful to health so there was no need for a broad restriction; that there were few practical alternatives to PFAS; and that a broad restriction on their manufacture and use would effectively hollow out the European economy, killing the European green transition.

If the chemical industry were being taken seriously by EU officials, EU policymakers would be more likely to be persuaded by these arguments. So, our consortium decided to look at them more closely and “stress-test” them.

To do this, the team – organised by Horel – adapted approaches used to explore the validity of industry arguments used in tobacco and food policy conflicts. Our results are telling.

Interview with American lawyer Rob Billott, a legal advisor for the Forever Lobbying Project.

The industry association that represents European polymer producers, Plastics Europe, for instance, emphasised the concept of “polymers of low concern” to claim that most fluoropolymers were in fact perfectly safe, or at least highly likely to be safe.

But, as one Le Monde article states: “Plastics Europe declined to share the data, assumptions and methods that underpin its dire predictions.” Plastics Europe also declined interview requests from Le Monde.

Plastics Europe arguably had implied that the concept of polymers of low concern encapsulated criteria developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). To the casual observer, this association with a respected international policy organisation gave it a measure of validity.

So, we traced the origins of the concept. Yes, there had been an OECD expert group which had “engaged in discussions on criteria for identifying polymers of low concern” between 1993 and 2009. But there had never been enough reliable data for the OECD to commit to the idea as an institution. The OECD confirmed to Horel that “no agreed-upon set of criteria at the OECD level was finalised”.

Other arguments we stress-tested exhibited different weaknesses, but they typically worked to the same effect. Facts and observations were twisted and exaggerated to present a lose-lose or “dystopian” characterisation of the EU proposals – terrible economic losses globally, with no appreciable health or environmental benefits.

As things stand, the EU restriction is finely balanced. Officials within the European Commission have been reported to be “offering reassuring indications to corporate interests about future decision-making”.

By raising important questions about the consequences of not regulating, and highlighting the dubious arguments put forward to justify doing nothing, we hope our latest investigation has shifted the language and focus of public debate. But whether this will displace the current short-termist emphasis on competitiveness and deregulation being pushed by some members of the European Commission remains to be seen.

————————————

This blog is written by Gary Fooks, Professor in Criminology, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Building resilience of the UK food system to weather and climate shocks

Posted on September 11, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Climate-driven changes in extreme weather events are one of the highest-risk future shocks to the UK food system, underlining the importance of preparedness across the food chain. However, the CCC’s 2023 report on adaptation progress highlighted that current climate adaptation plans and policies, and their delivery and implementation for UK food security are either insufficient or limited. Through an ongoing Met Office cross-academic partnership activity (‘SuperRAP’) working across all eight partner universities (including Bristol), Defra, the Food Standards Agency, UKRI-BBSRC and the Global Food Security Programme, a recent perspective paper, and associated online workshops and surveys in January 2023 have:

Scoped out the direct impacts of weather and climate extremes on the UK food supply chain,
Highlighted areas where weather and climate information could support resilience across time and space scales through decision making and action,
Identified key knowledge gaps,
Made recommendations for future research and funding, and
Scoped out the potential adaptation/policy responses to the direct impacts of weather and climate extremes on the food chain, and the resulting trade-offs and consequences

The potential for weather and climate information to support decision making in agricultural and food system-related activities, and improved resilience to weather and climate shocks across time and space scales. Grey background boxes represent generalised meteorological capabilities; light blue ellipses with white outlines denote potential applications. © Crown Copyright 2021, Met Office. From Falloon et al. 2022.

However, a major gap remains in understanding the changes needed to rapidly increase the delivery and implementation of climate adaptation in support of resilience in the UK food system. A workshop on this topic was held at the University of Reading’s Henley Business School on 13-14 June 2024 bringing together academics across a wide range of disciplines and presented findings back to industry and government stakeholders for their feedback and prioritisation.

The workshop aimed to consider key areas for supporting resilience and adaptation to climate change identified by the January 2023 workshop including innovation and trialling novel management and production approaches, social innovation and enabling behavioural shifts, mutual learning, and underpinning evidence gaps. The workshop was supported by a cross-sector survey on adaptation barriers and priorities.

Overarching themes identified in the workshop included the need for a strategic, system-wide, and long-term approach, underpinned by strong inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration.

Critical evidence gaps include improving understanding of:

Impacts of international dimensions and trade on UK food ingredient and packaging availability, compared to UK-sourced products – and their interactions
Impacts of climate extremes on production and transport and effective adaptation options
Impacts of climate shocks on UK livelihood systems, households and consumers
Broader adaptation and transformation needed to escape existing ‘doom loops’
Application of tech solutions (e.g. GM/gene editing) for climate resilience and adaptation

Other issues raised included thresholds for change, land pressures, substitutability of different foods, impacts of government policy, nutrition, regenerative practices, and interactions with the energy sector.

Recommended ways forward include:

Tools, models, and methods that consider risks across the food chain and system outcomes
A focus on inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches.
Increased international collaboration/cooperation, and stronger government-science interactions
Enhancing food chain data access, use and integration, and a supportive enabling environment
Long-term trials: to provide evidence of impacts of alternative practices
Preparing the transport network for climate extremes.
A refresh of the National Food Strategy, building on latest science
A new funding landscape: long-term, strategic, visionary, systemic, trans- and interdisciplinary, co-designed and coordinated.

Other issues raised included: sharing responsibility and joined-up, transparent approaches across sectors and institutions; risk mitigation tools; use cases and roadmaps; welfare responses; interdisciplinary skills training; and research across a wider range of crops.

We are aiming to produce a peer-reviewed perspective paper on critical research (and practice) gaps, and recommendations for the way forward.

———————————–

This blog was written by Professor Pete Falloon from the Cabot Institute for the Environment and Met Office.

A bald headed man smiling with dark rimmed glasses. — Professor Pete Falloon

Chemical industry failing to stop emissions of super-strong greenhouse gas HFC-23 – new research

Posted on September 4, 2024September 4, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The potent greenhouse gas HFC-23 is emitted from the industrial production of fluoroplastics and specific refrigerants.
Quality Stock Arts/Shutterstock

Emissions of a super-strong greenhouse gas could be substantially reduced if factories would properly implement existing “destruction technology” in certain industrial production processes. If operated properly, emissions of this greenhouse gas could be cut by at least 85% – that’s equivalent to 17% of carbon dioxide emissions from global aviation.

Our research, published today in the journal Nature, scrutinises emissions of one of the most potent hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) greenhouse gases, called trifluoromethane (HFC-23). One gram of HFC-23 in the atmosphere contributes as much to the greenhouse effect as 12kg of carbon dioxide.

This unwanted byproduct comes from the production of certain gases used as refrigerants and the manufacture of fluoropolymers (a class of plastic chemicals) such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a key ingredient in most non-stick cookware.

black frying pan, single friend egg, dark background. — Fluoroplastics are used in the production of non-stick cookware.
J.Thasit/Shutterstock

More than 150 countries have pledged to significantly reduce their HFC-23 emissions as part of the 2016 Kigali Amendment to an international treaty called the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer. The breakdown of HFCs in the atmosphere does not directly link to ozone depletion, but HFCs were introduced to replace ozone-depleting substances such as chloroflourocarbons (CFCs), so they have been included in this regulation.

HFCs are also strong greenhouse gases. While the Kigali Amendment aims to reduce emissions of widely used HFCs, an exceptional arrangement is made for HFC-23. Because HFC-23 is largely emitted from production processes and not from end-use applications, its destruction as a by-product is required “to the extent practicable” as of 2020 – that means as much as possible, but it’s a vague limit.

Even before 2020, many countries, including the biggest manufacturers of PTFE such as China, reported they had installed destruction technologies at PTFE factories and are successfully destroying HFC-23. In 2020, the reported global annual emissions of HFC-23 were only around 2,000 metric tonnes – but actual global emissions, derived from atmospheric measurements, amounted to around 16,000 metric tonnes.

To unravel this discrepancy between real and reported emissions, we analysed HFC-23 emissions from a major European PTFE factory in the Netherlands, which already operates destruction technologies – these include the incineration of harmful byproducts.

The aim of our experiment was to define what “practicable” actually means, and to identify how much HFC-23 can be easily destroyed by existing technology at a factory-wide scale, considering that emissions come from both the chimneys and leaks from other parts of the plant.

With the factory’s collaboration and the consent of the Dutch environment authorities, we released a controlled amount of a tracer gas directly next to the factory: this is a non-toxic, degradable gas that does not occur in the atmosphere. We then measured the concentrations of HFC-23, other byproducts of flouropolymer manufacture, and the released tracer at an observing site run by the Europe-wide greenhouse gas research centre, the Integrated Carbon Observation System, near the Dutch village of Cabauw.

This 213m-tall tower is located around 25km away from the factory. We knew exactly how much tracer we had released and how much of it arrived at the measuring point, so we could calculate the emissions of HFC-23 and other gases.

aerial shot of tall metal tower, green fields — Measurements of HFC-23 and the tracer were carried out at the 213m Cabauw measuring mast, operated by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.
ICOS RI/Tom Oudijk, Sander Karsen, Dennis Manda, CC BY-NC-ND

Results showed that even though our estimated emissions were higher than those reported by the factory, the technology at this particular factory was working properly and successfully destroying HFC-23.

Upscaling to global emissions

However, as the industrial manufacture of fluoropolymers is currently the major known source of HFC-23 to the atmosphere, we suspect that destruction technologies are not as effectively operated as reported by manufacturers.

Our findings indicate that if all factories globally were controlling emissions in the same way as the Dutch site, HFC-23 emissions could be cut by at least around 85%, representing emissions equivalent to 170 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. This reduction equates to almost one-fifth (17%) of carbon dioxide emissions generated by all aviation traffic.

Real and reported emissions of HFC-23

An independent auditing framework for fluoropolymer production would ensure that HFC-23 is destroyed properly at factories around the world. Targeted monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the production of fluorochemicals would further the understanding of emission sources and ensure that countries are fully compliant under different international climate and environment agreements.

Our results show that destruction technologies can effectively be implemented – in this case, at factories producing fluoropolymers such as PTFE, to significantly reduce the emissions of a highly potent greenhouse gas.

This blog is written by Dr Dominique Rust, Research Associate, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol; Dr Kieran Stanley, Senior Research Fellow, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, and Stephen Henne, Senior Scientist, Group Atmospheric Modelling and Remote Sensing, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The last ozone-layer damaging chemicals to be phased out are finally falling in the atmosphere

Posted on June 18, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The high-altitude AGAGE Jungfraujoch station in Switzerland is used to take measurements of Earth’s atmosphere.
Jungfrau.ch

Since the discovery of the ozone layer, countries have agreed and amended treaties to aid its recovery. The most notable of these is the Montreal protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer, which is widely regarded as the most successful environmental agreement ever devised.

Ratified by every UN member state and first adopted in 1987, the Montreal protocol aimed to reduce the release of ozone-depleting substances into the atmosphere. The most well known of these are chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Starting in 1989, the protocol phased out the global production of CFCs by 2010 and prohibited their use in equipment like refrigerators, air-conditioners and insulating foam. This gradual phase-out allowed countries with less established economies time to transition to alternatives and provided funding to help them comply with the protocol’s regulations.

Today, refrigerators and aerosol cans contain gases like propane which, although flammable, does not deplete ozone in Earth’s upper atmosphere when released. However, ozone-friendly alternatives to CFCs in some products, such as certain foams used to insulate fridges, buildings and air-conditioning units, took longer to find. Another set of gases, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), was used as a temporary replacement.

A collection of used refrigerators. — HCFCs can leak to the atmosphere from discarded fridges.
RichardJohnson/Shutterstock

Unfortunately, HCFCs still destroy ozone. The good news is that levels of HCFCs in the atmosphere are now falling and indeed have been since 2021 according to research I led with colleagues. This marks a major milestone in the recovery of Earth’s ozone layer – and offers a rare success story in humanity’s efforts to tackle climate-warming gases too.

HCFCs v CFCs

HCFCs and CFCs have much in common. These similarities are what made the former suitable alternatives.

HCFCs contain chlorine, the chemical element in CFCs that causes these compounds to destroy the ozone layer. HCFCs deplete ozone to a much smaller extent than the CFCs they have replaced – you would have to release around ten times as much HCFC to have a comparable impact on the ozone layer.

But both CFCs and HCFCs are potent greenhouse gases. The most commonly used HCFC, HCFC-22, has a global warming potential of 1,910 times that of carbon dioxide, but only lasts for around 12 years in the atmosphere compared with several centuries for CO₂.

As non-ozone depleting alternatives to HCFCs became available it was decided that amendments to the Montreal protocol were needed to phase HCFCs out. These were agreed in Copenhagen and Beijing in 1992 and 1999 respectively.

This phase-out is still underway. A global target to end most production of HCFCs is set for 2030, with only very minor amounts allowed until 2040.

Turning the corner on a bumpy road

Our findings show that levels of HCFCs in the atmosphere have been falling since 2021 – the first decline since scientists started taking measurements in the late 1970s. This milestone shows the enormous success of the Montreal protocol in not only tackling the original problem of CFCs but also its lesser known and less destructive successor.

Two graphs side by side showing a the climate warming and ozone-destroying influence of HCFCs declining from 2021. — The influence of HCFCs on the atmosphere is set to fall steadily.
Western et al. (2024)/Nature

This is very good news for the ozone layer’s continuing recovery. The most recent scientific prediction, made in 2022, anticipated that HCFC levels would not start falling until 2026.

Despite HCFC levels in the atmosphere going in the right direction, not everything has been smooth sailing in the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances. In 2019 a team of scientists, including myself, provided evidence that CFC-11, a common constituent of foam insulation, was still being used in parts of China despite the global ban on production.

The United Nations Environment Programme also reported that HCFCs were illegally produced in 2020 contrary to the phase-down schedule.

In 2023, I and others showed that levels of five more CFCs were increasing in the atmosphere. Rather than illegal production, this increase was more likely the result of a different process: a loophole in the Montreal protocol which allowed CFCs to be produced if they are used to make other substances, such as plastics or non-ozone depleting alternatives to CFCs and HCFCs.

Some HCFCs at very low levels in the atmosphere have also been shown to be increasing or not falling fast enough, despite few or no known uses.

Most of the CFCs and HCFCs still increasing in the atmosphere are released in the production of fluoropolymers – perhaps best known for their application in non-stick frying pans – or hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

HFCs are the ozone-friendly alternative that was developed and commercialised in the early 1990s to replace HCFCs, but their role as a potent greenhouse gas means that they are subject to international climate emission reduction treaties such as the Paris agreement and the Kigali amendment to the Montreal protocol.

The next best alternative to climate-warming HFCs is a matter of ongoing discussion. In many applications, it was thought that HFCs would be replaced by hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs), but these have created their own environmental problems in the formation of trifluoroacetic acid which does not break down in the environment and, like other poly- and per-fluorinated substances (PFAS), may pose a risk to human health.

A column of air-conditioning units attached to the exterior of a building. — HFOs enable air-conditioners to use less electricity than competing alternatives.
AndriiKoval/Shutterstock

HFOs are at least more energy-efficient refrigerants than older alternatives like propane, however.

Hope for the future

In discovering this fall in atmospheric levels of HCFCs, I feel like we may be turning the final corner in the global effort to repair the ozone layer. There is still a long way to go before it is back to its original state, but there are now good reasons to be optimistic.

Climate and optimism are two words rarely seen together. But we now know that a small group of potent greenhouse gases called HCFCs have been contributing less and less to climate change since 2021 – and look to set to continue this trend for the foreseeable future.

With policies already in place to phase down HFCs, there is hope that environmental agreements and international cooperation can work in combating climate change.

—————————–

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Luke Western, Research Associate in Atmospheric Science, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Labour scaling back its £28 billion green pledge will impact UK housing – and public health

Posted on February 19, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The UK Labour party has announced its intention to reduce its £28 billion green investment pledge to less than £15 billion if elected this year. The political fallout has been been largely focused on the party’s fiscal credibility and leader of the opposition Keir Starmer’s seeming proclivity for U-turns.

A crucial question so far overlooked is what impact the cut would have on public health. The initial pledge included a key home-insulation plan to upgrade 72% – 19m homes – of the UK’s housing stock.

The revised plan, however, replaces that ambitious target with the more ambiguous statement that “millions of homes” will be refurbished. Research has long shown that uninsulated homes have consequences for health, especially for those living in poverty and in poor quality housing. This in turn places an extra burden on an already over-stretched health service.

A constructionn site. — Labour plans to build 1.5 million homes.
Shutterstock

Existing government failure

The wider societal cost of poor-quality housing in the UK is estimated at £18.6 billion a year. Such costs, however, are often ignored when housing policy is being developed and implemented.

Labour promises to deliver 1.5 million homes by “blitzing” the planning system, but it has so far ignored the potential consequences for public health.

Of course, the failure to factor in health is by no means unique to Labour policy. It is already embedded in the government’s approach. A recent academic review of government housing and transport policy found that health is notably absent, despite well-established evidence that urban spaces are making us ill. This shows that on the occasions where health is included, it is lower in a hierarchy of priorities compared to other agendas such as growing the economy.

For many years, government housing policy has been shaped by the numeric gap between supply and demand, rather than the type or quality of the housing stock. The mechanisms for delivering have been based on land release and planning reform. Successive housing policies have mentioned involving communities and supporting their health, social, and cultural wellbeing. But there have been no clear targets for ensuring house retrofit and house building positively impact public health.

In his 2010 independent review on how to reduce health inequalities in England, epidemiologist Michael Marmot showed that prioritising health in urban policies, like housing and transport, can have significant health benefits for local populations.

Our research project has shown that health should be made a central factor in all national policy and guidance that shapes urban spaces. The World Health Organization recommends explicitly including health in housing policy – and tracking its impact with recognised metrics. UK politicians have largely failed to respond.

Promising developments

In addition to positive developments in government, such as the Build Back Beautiful Commission, the opposition also has some promising ambitions. Labour is pledging to deliver a “prevention-first revolution”, in which it envisions a pro-active role for government in ensuring that everybody has the building blocks for a healthy life.

In its mission document for health policy, Labour says that retrofitting of millions of homes will “keep families warm rather than living in damp, mouldy conditions that give their children asthma”. The fact that the party is making explicit this link between housing and health signal is a potentially very positive step forward.

However, in all the furore about Labour scrapping its £28 billion pledge, this crucial link to public health has been entirely forgotten. Indeed, while Labour’s environmental policy has been carefully updated to revise and remove various targets, the preventative health agenda retains the now defunct promise to “oversee retrofitting of 19 million homes”. This is perhaps indicative of the extent to which policymakers just don’t think about health when they think about housing.

While the Conservative pledges for the next parliament remain unclear, analysis of their existing policies in government has found a failure to think about or measure the way housing and urban development policis impact health. Instead, it is merely assumed that housing policies will have positive health outcomes. Rather than making such assumptions, policymakers should be putting public health considerations at the centre of all their decision making.

To ensure that the impact any given policy has on public health is measured and acted upon, health needs to be an explicit urban planning policy outcome. It needs to be clearly defined, measurable, and built into policy implementation and political discourse.

It is also important that different government ministries and relevant stakeholders focused on public health, planning and the environment work together more effectively. Unhealthy homes should be a priority for both the housing minister and the health minister.

Healthier people are more economically productive. They have a smaller financial footprint on the NHS. In the long term, better preventative health is a key part of solving some of the UK’s biggest economic challenges, from labour shortages and sluggish productivity growth to stretched public finances.

Too often government policy is not often designed with the long-term in mind. Instead, short-term economic outcomes and political gains are prioritised – to the detriment of public health.

The best way for the government to protect public health is for every department to consider how their work impacts on it. If political and economic calculations about creating, scrapping and rescaling major projects continue to ignore health, however, politicians are likely to continue coming up with the wrong answers.

———————————

This blog is written by Dr Jack Newman, Research Fellow, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol and Dr Geoff Bates, Lecturer in Social Policy, Research Fellow, University of Bath.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Are you a journalist looking for climate experts for COP28? We’ve got you covered

Posted on October 30, 2023November 28, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

We’ve got lots of media trained climate change experts. If you need an expert for an interview, here is a list of our experts you can approach. All media enquiries should be made via Victoria Tagg, our dedicated Media and PR Manager at the University of Bristol.

Email victoria.tagg@bristol.ac.uk or call +44 (0)117 428 2489.

Climate change / climate emergency / climate science / climate-induced disasters

Dr Eunice Lo – expert in changes in extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold spells, and how these changes translate to negative health outcomes including illnesses and deaths. Follow on Twitter/X @EuniceLoClimate.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.

Dr Katerina Michalides – expert in drylands, drought and desertification and helping East African rural communities to adapt to droughts and future climate change. Follow on Twitter/X @_kmichaelides.

Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair. Follow on Twitter/X @ClimateDann.

Professor Dan Lunt – expert on past climate change, with a focus on understanding how and why climate has changed in the past and what we can learn about the future from the past. Dan is also a Lead Author on IPCC AR6. Follow on Twitter/X @ClimateSamwell.

Professor Jonathan Bamber – expert on the impact of melting land ice on sea level rise (SLR) and the response of the ocean to changes in freshwater forcing. Follow on Twitter/X @jlbamber

Professor Paul Bates CBE – expert in the science of flooding, risk and reducing threats to life and economic losses worldwide. Follow on Twitter/X @paul_d_bates

Dr Matt Palmer – expert in sea level and ocean heat content at the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Bristol. Follow on Twitter/X @mpclimate.

Professor Guy Howard – expertise in building resilience and supporting adaptation in water systems, sanitation, health care facilities, and housing. Expert in wider infrastructure resilience assessment.

Net Zero / Energy / Renewables

Dr Caitlin Robinson – expert on energy poverty and energy justice and also in mapping ambient vulnerabilities in UK cities. Caitlin will be virtually attending COP28. Follow on Twitter/X @CaitHRobin.

Professor Philip Taylor – Expert in net zero, energy systems, energy storage, utilities, electric power distribution. Also Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bristol. Follow on Twitter/X @rolyatlihp.

Dr Colin Nolden – expert in sustainable energy policy, regulation and business models and interactions with secondary markets such as carbon markets and other sectors such as mobility. Colin will be in attendance in the Blue Zone at COP28 during week 2.

Professor Charl Faul – expert in novel functional materials for sustainable energy applications e.g. in CO2 capture and conversion and energy storage devices. Follow on Twitter/X @Charl_FJ_Faul.

Climate finance / Loss and damage

Dr Rachel James – Expert in climate finance, damage, loss and decision making. Also has expertise in African climate systems and contemporary and future climate change. Follow on Twitter/X @_RachelJames.

Dr Katharina Richter – expert in decolonial environmental politics and equitable development in times of climate crises. Also an expert on degrowth and Buen Vivir, two alternatives to growth-based development from the Global North and South. Katarina will be virtually attending COP28. @DrKatRichter.

Climate justice

Dr Alix Dietzel – climate justice and climate policy expert. Focusing on the global and local scale and interested in how just the response to climate change is and how we can ensure a just transition. Alix will be in attendance in the Blue Zone at COP28 during week 1. Follow on Twitter/X @alixdietzel.

Dr Ed Atkins – expert on environmental and energy policy, politics and governance and how they must be equitable and inclusive. Also interested in local politics of climate change policies and energy generation and consumption. Follow on Twitter/X @edatkins_.

Dr Karen Tucker – expert on colonial politics of knowledge that shape encounters with indigenous knowledges, bodies and natures, and the decolonial practices that can reveal and remake them. Karen will be in attending the Blue Zone of COP28 in week 2.

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety and educational psychologist. Follow on Twitter/X @edpsydan.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in influence of climate change on infectious water-related disease, including waterborne disease and vector-borne disease.

Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill – expert in health research, including long-term health conditions and design of ways to support and improve health. @EBIBristol (this account is only monitored in office hours).

Youth, children, education and skills

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety in children and educational psychologist. Follow on Twitter/X @edpsydan.

Dr Camilla Morelli – expert in how children and young people imagine the future, asking what are the key challenges they face towards the adulthoods they desire and implementing impact strategies to make these desires attainable. Follow on Twitter/X @DrCamiMorelli.

Dr Helen Thomas-Hughes – expert in engaging, empowering, and inspiring diverse student bodies as collaborative environmental change makers. Also Lead of the Cabot Institute’s MScR in Global Environmental Challenges. Follow on Twitter/X @Researchhelen.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports. Also part of the Waves of Change project with Dr Camilla Morelli, looking at the intersection of social, economic and climatic impacts on young people’s lives and futures around the world.

Climate activism / Extinction Rebellion

Dr Oscar Berglund – expert on climate change activism and particularly Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the use of civil disobedience. Follow on Twitter @berglund_oscar.

Land / Nature / Food

Dr Jo House – expert on land and climate interactions, including emissions of carbon dioxide from land use change (e.g. deforestation), climate mitigation potential from the land (e.g. afforestation, bioenergy), and implications of science for policy. Previously Government Office for Science’s Head of Climate Advice. Follow on Twitter @Drjohouse.

Professor Steve Simpson – expert marine biology and fish ecology, with particular interests in the behaviour of coral reef fishes, bioacoustics, effects of climate change on marine ecosystems, conservation and management. Follow on Twitter/X @DrSteveSimpson.

Dr Taro Takahashi – expert on farming, livestock production systems as well as programme evaluation and general equilibrium modelling of pasture and livestock-based economies.

Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.

Air pollution / Greenhouse gases

Dr Aoife Grant – expert in greenhouse gases and methane. Set up a monitoring station at Glasgow for COP26 to record emissions.

Professor Matt Rigby – expert on sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances. Follow on Twitter @TheOtherMRigby.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in contribution of waste and wastewater systems to methane emissions in low- and middle-income countries

Plastic and the environment

Dr Charlotte Lloyd – expert on the fate of chemicals in the terrestrial environment, including plastics, bioplastics and agricultural wastes. Follow on Twitter @DrCharlLloyd.

Cabot Institute for the Environment at COP28

We will have three media trained academics in attendance at the Blue Zone at COP28. These are: Dr Alix Dietzel (week 1), Dr Colin Nolden (week 2) and Dr Karen Tucker (week 2). We will also have two academics attending virtually: Dr Caitlin Robinson and Dr Katharina Richter.

Read more about COP on our website at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot/what-we-do/projects/cop/
——————————
This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment. Follow on Twitter @Enviro_Mand and @cabotinstitute.

Watch our Cabot Conversations – 10 conversations between 2 experts on a climate change issue, all whilst an artist listens in the background and interprets the conversation into a beautiful piece of art in real time. Find out more at bristol.ac.uk/cabot/conversations.

Navigating divorce and environmental challenges: Implications in a changing world

Posted on October 30, 2023February 16, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Broken heart on wooden table. In an ever-evolving world, societal dynamics are continually shifting, reflecting the multifaceted nature of the human experience. One of the most profound changes we have witnessed in recent decades is the transformation of family structures, with divorce becoming a common facet of modern life across various societies. For instance, according to Office for National Statistics as of 2021, 42% of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce. Alongside this social evolution, we grapple with an equally pressing issue—the burgeoning environmental emergency. These two forces converge dramatically in more profound ways than we might realise. In this blog, I will explore the profound impact of dealing with divorce within the context of logistical and emotional anxiety brought about by the existential threat to our environment.

The complex landscape of divorce

Divorce, a life-altering event, affects not just the couple but an entire ecosystem—that is to say, the nuclear family. My PhD research findings illuminated the diverse experiences of young people whose parents divorced in different cultural contexts. After interviewing forty-four young people aged between 11 and 16 in Türkiye and England, what emerged strongly was a nuanced understanding of the variegated effects – both uplifting and otherwise, of divorce particularly for children.

For instance, more than half of the Turkish young people reported changing schools due to their parents’ divorce. While many didn’t directly attribute their school performance to the divorce, several children noted that changing schools positively impacted their performance. This aligns with global trends. A changing world demands adaptability, and some young people see education as their anchor, providing hope and a chance to take control of their lives, as reported by older participants in my study.

Emotional turmoil is a common aspect of divorce, with sadness and confusion being initial reactions. However, as my research indicates, many young people learn to adapt and grow from their experiences over time. Young people also emphasised the pivotal role that the home environment plays in shaping children’s experiences during and after divorce. Exposure to violence or maltreatment within the family environment can have a lasting negative impact.

Environmental challenges as an added layer

While navigating the intricate terrain of divorce, families now face an additional layer of complexity—the environmental challenges we face as a society. The world around us is changing rapidly due to issues such as climate change, pollution, and resource depletion. These challenges bring new dynamics to the fore within family life. A changing world presents economic challenges for families. Natural disasters, resource scarcity, or environmental policies have disrupted livelihoods and strained family finances, each feeding into existing marital tensions and ultimately increasing the likelihood of divorce. According to the World Economic Forum, climate change and related disasters could cost the global economy $360 billion annually by 2030.

Environmental crises force families to relocate or to become displaced persons, creating stress and uncertainty. The number of internally displaced people around the world reached 71.1 million as of the end of 2022, an increase of 20% from the previous year, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s flagship annual report. Today’s displacement crises are growing in scale, complexity and scope, and factors like food insecurity, climate change, and escalating and protracted conflicts are adding new layers to this phenomenon.

The emotional toll of witnessing environmental devastation can affect family members’ mental health. Anxiety, depression, and a sense of helplessness may surface, adding to the existing emotional challenges of divorce. The Mental Health Foundation in the UK has highlighted the impact of environmental issues and climate change on mental health, that stress and anxiety are rising.

A call for resilience and adaptation

As we stand at the crossroads of these two significant societal shifts—divorce and environmental challenges—it becomes clear that resilience and adaptation are paramount. Families must not only weather the storms of marital dissolution but must also equip themselves to confront the environmental storms of a changing world.

Empowering young people with education and awareness about both divorce and environmental issues is crucial. They need the tools to understand, adapt, and make positive contributions to their lives and the world around them. Families need robust support systems. This includes access to mental health services for emotional well-being and community networks that can assist during economic hardship or environmental crises.

Having to separate houses also means having to double the expenses for two different households. While divorce can bring about significant changes and challenges, it is important to recognise that it can also have positive aspects, such as the potential for personal growth and the opportunity to create healthier family dynamics. In my research, 95% of the young people said they feel happier after their parents’ divorce than before and during. Therefore, sustainable living practices can help mitigate the impact of both divorce and environmental challenges. This not only contributes to the preservation of the planet but also instils values of responsibility and resilience in younger generations. Divorce cannot solely be seen as a breakdown of a family unit. On the contrary, families can advocate for action on environmental issues, fostering a sense of purpose and unity. Addressing these challenges collectively can lead to positive changes that benefit the family unit and the world.

In our rapidly changing world, families often find themselves at the intersection of two transformative forces—personal and environmental upheaval. At first glance, divorce and environmental challenges may seem unrelated. However, the two have a profound connection. Studies have shown that the environment plays a significant role in shaping our mental health and well-being. The increasing prevalence of climate change-related stress and anxiety, as documented by the American Psychological Association, highlights this link.

When we realise that environmental changes impact our mental health, we can begin to see the intricate relations between these forces. By acknowledging the complexity of divorce within the context of a changing world, understanding the implications of environmental challenges on our emotional well-being, and fostering resilience and adaptation, we can empower families to not only survive but thrive in this shifting landscape. Ultimately, through these challenges, we can shape a more compassionate, resilient, and sustainable world for generations to come.

This blog is written by Dr Gozde Burger, whose PhD is on young people’s experiences of parental divorce in Türkiye and England. She is currently working as part of the GW4 Alliance as a Senior Research Coordinator. Contact: Gozde.burger@bristol.ac.uk.