This editorial piece in Environmental Research Letters highlights the fact that, as opposed to CO2 emissions, those of the powerful greenhouse gas methane are currently rising faster than at any point in the last twenty years. Around two-thirds of global emissions of methane are attributable to anthropogenic activities, with agriculture and related land use change identified as a main culprit.

In light of the talks about the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Euractiv has begun a special series of articles about agriculture in Europe. 

This paper in Nature addresses the question of whether a warming planet leads to increased CO2 emissions through heightened activity by soil microbes. It finds that this positive feedback mechanism exists and is likely to be of great importance in the future global carbon budget.

The Swiss institute ‘Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne’ (EPFL) has launched Openfood.ch, a website that provides the public with data on more than 14,000 food products sold in Switzerland. 

This randomized controlled study looked at how obese Norwegian men were affected by a diet very high in the intake of total and saturated fat, as compared to one high in carbohydrates, while controlling for intake of energy, protein, and polyunsaturated fats and food types. 

This comprehensive Future Brief from Science for Environment Policy examines the research around ‘impact investment’; those investments which are directed towards generating measurable social and/or environmental impacts, in addition to a financial return. The report focuses on investments in Europe, although it includes a case study of sustainable teak plantation in Panama.

The Nexus2020 project has published a report in which academics and business leaders worked together to identify the most important questions around sustainability for businesses. It specifically focuses on so-called ‘nexus’ issues: the interconnections between food, water, energy and the natural environment.

Tara Garnett participated in the Nobel prize celebrations, giving the opening speech the Nobel Week Dialogue event in Stockholm on 9 December. You can watch her talk, introducing the day's discussion here.

FCRN member Chris Foster has recently co-authored this paper, which argues that a focus on ‘greening’ individual products without changing the wider socio-economic context within which products are produced, marketed and consumed is likely to achieve very little.