Despite 50 years of good science showing the urgency for action on remedying climate change, the business and political worlds have been exceedingly slow in actualizing climate solutions. Now excess climate-related deaths have mounted to more than 5 million people per year. In this Intelligence Briefing, we identify a few targeted driving actions through economic taxation, ending subsidies, and pursuit of legal cases for climate homicide, among many others. Scientists can play a vital role in providing supporting scientific evidence for policies and prosecutions, and model climate behaviors in their personal and professional lives.

Based on our analysis of the current global situation regarding carbon (CO2) in the atmosphere, we note that the earth has reached a dangerous 420 ppm, compared to staying under the 350 ppm necessary for human sustainability; and carbon concentration in the atmosphere is still climbing, as fossil fuel firms are continuing to delay and dilute regulatory efforts. This paper suggests action on several fronts. Governments can impose improved taxation regimes that involve unitary, windfall, and luxury taxes on carbon and the consumption of natural assets. Cutting subsidies to fossil fuel firms via COP actions can reduce carbon, by making renewable energy more competitive. We suggest recognizing the excess deaths by carbon pollution as homicide and charging responsible companies as was done in the case of asbestos and tobacco. If timely action is not taken, we caution about the potential rise of climate violence of emerging ‘new politics’ and increased global population displacement. Science, government, and business sectors need to collaborate in transdisciplinary ways to produce further actionable knowledge. Scientists can lead by example by reducing their own carbon footprints.

Fund climate action by taxing billionaires, eliminating subsidies, and suing fossil companies for climate homicide. The science community is focused on and committed to systems changes – seeking both natural systems, and social and economic systems to be sustainable. Yet systems that are in-place now producing carbon dioxide (herein aka carbon), are not taking adequate scientifically recommended actions; or worse, they are changing in the wrong directions. How can we move from producing more scientific knowledge to science-based actions, and what can scientists do to support such actions? In this Intelligence Briefing, we suggest some pathways for action.

Climate stabilization requires scaling-up technologies to capture and store carbon. Carbon removal could be very profitable, and some of the agents best placed to benefit are ‘carbon majors’, i.e. fossil fuel companies. We argue that in ordinary circumstances only agents without significant historical climate responsibilities would be entitled to the full benefits from carbon removal. Under non-ideal conditions, carbon majors might be entitled to benefit, provided that no other agent could remove similar quantities of carbon at similar costs. This burden of proof is only likely to be met in countries with poor governance capacities.

Climate stabilization requires scaling up technologies to capture and store carbon. Some of the agents best placed to profit from carbon removal are ‘carbon majors’, especially fossil fuel companies. Yet incentivizing carbon majors to undertake carbon removal poses an ethical dilemma: carbon majors have made significant historical contributions to climate change and have significantly benefitted from such contributions without being made to compensate for resulting climate harm. This is why it seems unfair to reward them with additional economic benefits. However, carbon majors possess the technological skills and infrastructure to upscale carbon removal efficiently. We argue that in ordinary circumstances, only agents without significant climate responsibilities would be morally entitled to fully benefit from carbon removal. Yet under non-ideal conditions, it might be permissible to reward carbon majors if no other agent were capable of removing as much carbon at similar costs and on similar timeframes. We believe this argument faces an imposing burden of proof that is only likely to be met in countries with poor governance capacities. In more favorable circumstances, including those of most OECD countries, rewarding carbon majors without having them pay for their historical climate responsibilities remains impermissible.

Rewarding carbon majors to undertake carbon dioxide removal is unjust due to their historical climate responsibilities. Where possible, governments should empower other agents to remove CO2.

There is a global water crisis, brought on by human actions. The ways we make decisions about water must transform to solve it. We focused on the attitudes that people in society hold toward water to understand how close or far away we are from a broadly accepted worldview that supports this transformation (what we call ‘water resilience’). We found that, across six countries in the Global South and North, attitudes showed moderate support for water resilience. Many people also showed potential to increase their support.

Water in the Anthropocene is threatened. Water governance aligned with the complex, dynamic, and uncertain nature of social–ecological systems (a ‘water resilience’ paradigm) is needed, and requires transformative change. We queried the potential for transformative change from the perspective that societal worldviews/paradigms offer an important leverage point for system change. Our study aimed to identify attitudes about water resilience and the extent to which there was potential for greater endorsement of water resilience. We surveyed individuals in six countries using vignettes to determine their level of water resilience endorsement (n = 2649). Overall water resilience endorsement was moderate (M = 2.86 out of 4). In some countries, a vignette related to a personally relevant water issue resulted in higher water resilience endorsement. More than half of the respondents held the potential for greater water resilience endorsement. Those with the greatest potential were younger, had children, considered religion more important, were more likely to live in urban areas, and lived in the same area for 10+ years. These findings provide guidance how to engage with the public (e.g. age-specific or parent-focused framing) to potentially increase societal water resilience endorsement.

General public in six countries moderately supports water resilience to address the water crisis, with room to improve.