Climate Change
A call for charging points at home
Politics
ETH Zurich
For Switzerland to become climate neutral, there’s no way around electric mobility. But to get e-cars going, the public must push for charging stations where people live, argues Anthony Patt. 
Warmer and wetter climates amplify carbon release
Research
ETH Zurich
Terrestrial ecosystems help mitigate climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. A new study now confirms that changing climate conditions could reduce this effect because in warmer and wetter areas, carbon stored in the soil is released back into the atmosphere more quickly.
The time to take low-carbon transition risks seriously is now
Politics
EPFL
A successful climate policy means preparing for unintended adverse impacts, such as job losses in declining energy sectors or potential environmental impacts of scaling up renewables. That’s the message of EPFL researchers in their latest policy brief that provides a roadmap for anticipating and mitigating the risks of transitioning to a low-carbon economy and society. It calls on decision-makers to plan ahead and take systematic action.
Emissions of banned ozone-depleting substance back on decline
Politics
Empa
After a mysterious and sharp increase between 2012 and 2017 that could be traced to eastern China global emissions of a potent (and banned) substance notorious for depleting the Earth’s ozone layer – the protective barrier that absorbs the Sun’s harmful UV rays – have fallen rapidly in recent years and are now as low as never before since measurements began in this region in 2008, according to new atmospheric analyses published in "Nature" today.
Fingerprint analysis for laughing gas
Research
Empa
The former Empa scientist Kristýna Kantnerová receives the METAS Award 2021 in analytical chemistry, awarded by the Swiss Chemical Society, for her PhD thesis. In her research, she took a closer look at the well-known greenhouse gas nitrous oxide and developed a method for identifying and quantifying very rare, doubly substituted nitrous oxide isotopocules (isotopically substituted molecules) – an important step towards a better understanding of their formation and how to curb nitrous oxide emissions in the long term.
Major discovery helps explain coral bleaching
Research
EPFL
An EPFL scientist has made a major breakthrough in the understanding of coral bleaching – a process that causes corals to lose their color and eventually leads to their death. The process is triggered by warmer ocean temperatures, and, according to the study, it begins much earlier than previously thought. The bleaching apparently results from a disturbance in the metabolic equilibrium between corals and their symbiotic algae, which feed them and give them their color. 
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