The 2024 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: unprecedented warming demands unprecedented action

Record-breaking temperatures were recorded across the globe in 2023. Without climate action, adverse climate-related health impacts are expected to worsen worldwide, affecting billions of people. Temperatures in Europe are warming at twice the rate of the global average, threatening the health of populations across the continent and leading to unnecessary loss of life. The Lancet Countdown in Europe was established in 2021, to assess the health profile of climate change aiming to stimulate European social and political will to implement rapid health-responsive climate mitigation and adaptation actions. In 2022, the collaboration published its indicator report, tracking progress on health and climate change via 33 indicators and across five domains. This new report tracks 42 indicators highlighting the negative impacts of climate change on human health, the delayed climate action of European countries, and the missed opportunities to protect or improve health with health-responsive climate action. The methods behind indicators presented in the 2022 report have been improved, and nine new indicators have been added, covering leishmaniasis, ticks, food security, health-care emissions, production and consumption-based emissions, clean energy investment, and scientific, political, and media engagement with climate and health. Considering that negative climate-related health impacts and the responsibility for climate change are not equal at the regional and global levels, this report also endeavours to reflect on aspects of inequality and justice by highlighting at-risk groups within Europe and Europe's responsibility for the climate crisis

Integrated global assessment of the natural forest carbon potential

Forests are a substantial terrestrial carbon sink, but anthropogenic changes in land use and climate have considerably reduced the scale of this system1. Remote-sensing estimates to quantify carbon losses from global forests2,3,4,5 are characterized by considerable uncertainty and we lack a comprehensive ground-sourced evaluation to benchmark these estimates. Here we combine several ground-sourced6 and satellite-derived approaches2,7,8 to evaluate the scale of the global forest carbon potential outside agricultural and urban lands. Despite regional variation, the predictions demonstrated remarkable consistency at a global scale, with only a 12% difference between the ground-sourced and satellite-derived estimates. At present, global forest carbon storage is markedly under the natural potential, with a total deficit of 226 Gt (model range = 151–363 Gt) in areas with low human footprint. Most (61%, 139 Gt C) of this potential is in areas with existing forests, in which ecosystem protection can allow forests to recover to maturity. The remaining 39% (87 Gt C) of potential lies in regions in which forests have been removed or fragmented. Although forests cannot be a substitute for emissions reductions, our results support the idea2,3,9 that the conservation, restoration and sustainable management of diverse forests offer valuable contributions to meeting global climate and biodiversity targets

Co-limitation towards lower latitudes shapes global forest diversity gradients

The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is one of the most recognized global patterns of species richness exhibited across a wide range of taxa. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed in the past two centuries to explain LDG, but rigorous tests of the drivers of LDGs have been limited by a lack of high-quality global species richness data. Here we produce a high-resolution (0.025° × 0.025°) map of local tree species richness using a global forest inventory database with individual tree information and local biophysical characteristics from ~1.3 million sample plots. We then quantify drivers of local tree species richness patterns across latitudes. Generally, annual mean temperature was a dominant predictor of tree species richness, which is most consistent with the metabolic theory of biodiversity (MTB). However, MTB underestimated LDG in the tropics, where high species richness was also moderated by topographic, soil and anthropogenic factors operating at local scales. Given that local landscape variables operate synergistically with bioclimatic factors in shaping the global LDG pattern, we suggest that MTB be extended to account for co-limitation by subordinate drivers

Differential responses of Bolivian timber species to prescribed fire and other gap treatments

The article followed the establishment and growth response of 13 commercial tree species to canopy opening, above-ground biomass removal, and experimental burns of low and high intensities in a lowland dry forest in Bolivia. Three patterns of response to treatments were observed among the most abundant commercial tree species. (1) Shade-intolerant species regenerated mostly from seed and had the highest survival and growth rates following high-intensity burns. (2) Shade-tolerant species were abundant in gap control and plant removal treatments. Treatments had little effect on the height growth of these species. (3) Individuals of root sprouting species were most abundant following plant removal and low-intensity burn treatments. Treatments had little effect on the height growth of these species. The wide variation in species responses to gap treatments found in this study not only reinforces the concept that species are distributed along a continuum of shade-tolerance levels, but that other aspects of species biology, such as seed dispersal type or sprouting behavior, further differentiate regeneration strategies. The variety of regeneration strategies found among the species at this forest site will require a flexible management scheme that mixes more intensive silvicultural treatments such as prescribed burning with less intensive treatments

Florística e estrutura de comunidades vegetais em uma cronoseqüência de Floresta Atlântica no Estado do Paraná, Brasil Floristics and structure of plant communities along a chronosequence in the Atlantic Rain Forest of Paraná State, Brazil

Descrevemos a estrutura do estrato arbóreo de três sítios de Floresta Atlântica no litoral do Paraná, objetivando detectar diferenças estruturais gerais e nas populações ao longo do processo sucessional, visando subsidiar futuros planos de recomposição da vegetação. O estudo foi realizado na Reserva Natural Rio Cachoeira, onde foram escolhidos três sítios, cujos históricos indicavam a ocorrência de corte da vegetação há 20 anos, 80 anos e 120 anos. O sítio com 20 anos apresentou os menores valores de riqueza, diversidade, área basal e volume. O sítio com 80 anos apresentou os maiores valores de densidade e riqueza. No sítio com 120 anos foi observado o maior valor de diversidade, equabilidade e volume. Observaram-se algumas diferenças significativas, em termos de diversidade, área basal e volume entre os sítios em diferentes estádios. Comparações das estruturas de populações de espécies que ocorriam em mais de um sítio não mostraram grandes diferenças. Por outro lado, as características das espécies exclusivas de cada sítio influenciaram nas diferenças observadas nos três sítios.<br>We describe the tree structure of three Atlantic Forest fragments on the coast of Paraná, in order to detect differences in community structure throughout the succession process and to support future vegetation restoration projects. The study area was the Reserva Natural Rio Cachoeira, where three sites were chosen based on length of time since the last manmade disturbance (mostly agriculture and lodging); these were, respectively, 20-, 80- and 120-year-old forests. The 20-year-old forest had the lowest richness, diversity, basal area and volume. The 80-year-old forest had the highest density and richness. The 120-year-old forest had the highest diversity, equitability and volume. Diversity, basal area and volume were significantly different among the three sites. There were no important differences among structures of populations of species shared by the three areas. On the other hand, structural characteristics of exclusive species were important to determine differences among sites