Seasonal breeders often depend on predictable resource pulses, yet climate change may alter reliability without shifting average timing. Here, using satellite chlorophyll records and two decades of individual breeding data for a tropical seabird, we show that weakened breeding synchrony and declining and less consistent reproductive success were associated with increasingly variable bloom timing without a consistent directional shift. Focusing on average timing alone could mean that climate impacts on species are overlooked. The authors show that, for a tropical seabird model species, winter–spring phytoplankton blooms kept a stable mean timing but became more variable between years. Breeding synchrony weakened and reproductive success declined and became less consistent over the same two decades.
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and data centre infrastructure has generated substantial electricity demand and raised concerns about delayed phase-out of coal power, yet this relationship has not been empirically assessed. Here, using global datasets on data centres and coal-fired power plants, our survival analysis shows that coal power plants exposed to data centres built after 2020 exhibit significantly lower retirement risk. This link is more pronounced for plants with lower CO2 emission intensity and higher thermal efficiency. Each standard deviation increase in post-2020 data centre exposure is associated with about 1.7% extension of plant lifespan. Consequently, the 937 exposed coal-fired power generation units are projected to collectively emit an additional 1.96 GtCO2 (95% confidence interval 1.01–2.92) from 2025 until their retirement. Our estimates underscore the need to integrate digital infrastructure considerations into net-zero pathways. Data centre expansion may slow the coal-fired power plants phase-out, complicating decarbonization pathways. This study finds that coal units exposed to post-2020 data centres have lower retirement risks and their potential lifetime extensions could cause large additional CO2 emissions.
Data centres are among the world’s fastest growing electricity consumers. An analysis of more than 9,000 facilities worldwide links the artificial intelligence-era expansion of data centres to delayed coal plant retirements and around 2 Gt of additional carbon dioxide emissions.
Scientific grounds for a net-zero policy assume near-zero committed warming over a few decades after CO2 emissions cease. A modelling study suggests that if prior peak temperatures rise above 2 °C before cessation of CO2 emissions, committed warming increases, making it harder to stabilize global warming.
Global fossil fuel CO 2 emissions have grown 0.8% per year on average between 2019 and 2025. Here we project a decrease of 0.4% in 2026, probably as a short-term response to the energy shock triggered by the Iran conflict. Electric vehicles and solar and wind power offset about 64–79% of increasing emissions from demand growth through 2028; acceleration in clean technology deployment is needed to guarantee emissions peak and subsequent decline.
