Geoethics provides a framework for reflecting on the ethical, social, and cultural implications of geoscience in research, practice, and education, guiding responsible action for society and the environment. It also encourages the scientific community to move beyond purely technical solutions by embracing just, inclusive, and transformative approaches to socio-environmental issues.
Furthermore, science is inseparable from social and geopolitical contexts. These conditions shape what research is funded, whose knowledge is valued, with whom we collaborate, and who has access to conferences. As Earth and planetary scientists, we must consider the human and environmental consequences of our work. This is especially true in Earth observation, where many satellites have both scientific and military applications, and where scientific tools have at times enabled ecocide and resource exploitation under neocolonial systems.
This session will offer insights and reflections across a wide range of topics, from theoretical considerations to case studies, foster awareness and discussion of sensitive issues at the geoscience–society interface and explore how geoethics can guide responsible behavior and policies in the geosciences.
Why should humans protect biodiversity? Is it only because nature is beautiful, or because every species plays a role in the ecosystem? Some argue that all living beings have inherent moral value, as proposed by Deep Ecology. However, scientific or philosophical arguments alone are often not enough to motivate people to care about nature. As David Hume suggested, morality is based more on feelings than on pure reason. Protecting ecosystems therefore depends on human choice and moral commitment. Since the Earth cannot defend its own inherent value, caring for the planet ultimately relies on human responsibility.
Both secular and religious forms of ethical education can help develop this sense of care for biodiversity. Secular ethics often emphasize considering the interests of all beings, while monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam stress responsibility toward creation through a covenant between humans and God.
To support this moral awareness, we have developed “Noah’s Ark” a cross-cultural and interreligious educational project for primary school children in Flanders. The project aims to encourage respect for all living and non-living parts of the environment and to promote dialogue between different cultural and religious backgrounds, using the story of Noah’s Ark as a shared symbol.
In the first step, children aged 7–8 chose which animals should be allowed on the ark. In addition to familiar and popular animals, they included less attractive species such as spiders, snakes, and bees, as well as animals considered unclean in some traditions, such as pigs. This showed an inclusive view of life.
Next, the children expressed their feelings through drawings of the ark during the flood. Although the storm was frightening, they saw the ark as a place of safety for all life. They then imagined daily life on the ark, which helped them feel connected not only to other humans but also to animals and the natural environment.
Finally, the children shared their thoughts and feelings with one another. This exchange helped them develop new attitudes of care and responsibility toward all life on Earth.
How to cite: de Caluwe, J. G. M., Verstraeten, G. J. M., and Verstraeten, W. W.: Ecological Moral Voluntarism is a Corollary of Ethical Education, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-4534, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-4534, 2026.
The fragmented way ethics is currently taught in geoscience, often limited to narrow issues such as academic honesty, plagiarism, or research integrity, demonstrates the urgent need for a dedicated pedagogical framework to ensure that students understand the deeper social responsibilities and ethical implications of geoscience research and practice. In Ghana, the lack of empirical research on how students understand and apply geoethical principles necessitates the design of curricula that match students’ conceptual readiness and learning needs to address this gap. Without this evidence, it is also difficult to identify contextual examples that connect geoethics to students lived experiences. Thus, in this study, we use relational ethics theory to assess how students perceive the relevance of geoethics in geoscience research and practice and how they take responsibility for ethical decisions, which is an essential step for designing deliberate, contextual, participatory, reflective, and proactive curricula. Through a sequential explanatory mixed methods design that used 193 surveys and 11 theoretical interviews, we identified that almost half (45.6%) of Ghanaian students were unaware of the ethics applied to the geosciences. Students also mostly conceptualized geoethics as a set of codified guidelines and principles, emphasizing truthfulness, integrity, and respect. However, over 62% held the belief that ethical behavior preserves reputation, while violations erode respect, reflecting how geoethics is being internalized as reputation management rather than as a framework for navigating complex societal and environmental relationships. Similarly, the majority of students emphasis of geoethics as personal conduct rather than societal and environmental responsibilities indicates a gap in how students conceptualize these relationships. Finally, although 76% of students showed awareness of geoethics in sustainability and geoheritage, their emphasis on economic and cultural preservation benefits suggests that they may view community engagement and stewardship as instrumental goals rather than long-term ethical responsibilities rooted in reciprocity and accountability. We also provide pedagogical approaches that move beyond rule-based compliance and help students appreciate geoethics as a framework for engaging with communities, negotiating values, and making informed and responsible decisions in complex settings.
How to cite: Nyarko, S., Loh, Y., Opokua Debrah, M., and Gebhart, G.: Paving the way for geoethics pedagogy in Ghana: what students’ geoethical reasoning reveals, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-195, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-195, 2026.
Australia's natural history collections represent irreplaceable scientific infrastructure that underpins our understanding of deep-time biological and geological diversity and environmental change. As we confront accelerating biodiversity loss and climate change, these collections provide essential baselines for understanding ecosystem responses to environmental stress. Combined with deep temporal perspectives offered by palaeoecological data, in this case held within the Indo-Pacific Pollen Database (IPPD - NEOTOMAdb), this information is particularly valuable for predicting future ecosystem dynamics and informing conservation strategies. This presentation will explore: (i) how Australia’s natural history collections serve as critical infrastructure for systematic palaeoecological research, highlighting their role in preserving Australia's environmental heritage while enabling cutting-edge research into past, present, and future ecosystem dynamics; (ii) pathways to adopt explicit CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles that preference Indigenous Data Sovereignty in the governance of the collected biological or geological data; and (iii) examples of ongoing co-designed projects with Indigenous community partners that explicitly preference the rights of Indigenous Peoples to determine how data about them and their lands will be collected and used.
How to cite: Haberle, S., Herbert, A., Goring, S., and Blois, J.: Humanising Natural History Collections: Putting CARE principles into practice in the geosciences in Australia, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-8782, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-8782, 2026.
Our justification to critical sustainability in geosciences comes from years of experience in engaging with various branches of geo- and sustainability sciences, predominantly revolving around issues of climate change and aiming to tackle its problematique at the human end—be it, for example, educational or societal. Based on a typology formed we recognise three main classes of critical to consider when conducting research; that the state of the earth and its system is in a critical condition and appears to continue the uncomfortable trend at an accelerating speed; that the contemporary practices of sustainability have plenty to be critical about as the track record of the endeavour of sustainable development and sustainability science can be viewed as substandard; and that the history of science, research and other utilisable forms of knowledge- and sense-making offer countless critical approaches that when considering the two previous points begin to seem like a necessity.
Based on this justification we suggest a two-fold focus for the initiation of a more critical approach in geosciences as it aims to address issues of sustainability. Firstly, the epistemic foundation of geosciences, again and especially in the context of sustainability, could reflect the empiric-historic roots to consider the ongoing unprecedented phenomena and understanding of it: the duality of historical and predictive is severely contested and limits of our understanding—grasping the unknown-unknowns—are put to task. While the previous point mostly pertains to the world-views on which our research is unboundedly built upon, the critical turn has significant relevance to the practice and aims of sustainability-orientated research, from our position: the praxis—the problems of practice. It appears that, while practising research, we simultaneously exemplify the ideals of science (and sustainability) in a manner where we fail to live up to them—partly as ideals are easily understood as utopian, but more deviantly so if we fail to be critical towards our own practice-shortcomings.
To operationalise the suggested topic: elaborating on the active praxis of critical sustainability in geosciences, we observe a case of citizen climate change and sustainability responses and perceptions in Finland. Based on a (representative) national survey, while almost 90% agree to mostly understand what climate change is about, only approximately 35% agree that they themselves are contributing to the problems or see that the challenges they face in their everyday life are related to climate change and sustainability. Here we suggest, as a hopeful initiation of a conversation, that geosciences could ponder on its roles and vices, but moreover the groundbreaking possibilities, when contributing to a critical, palatable and impactful understanding of the Earth System crisis we face and the methodological choices we make while labouring towards this understanding.
How to cite: Salovaara, J. J. and Lauri, K. A.: Critical Sustainability in Geosciences — A praxis, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-20027, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-20027, 2026.
Cutting edge scientific research is typically confined to three primary areas: university research groups, institutional laboratories and for-profit industry, each of which have their pros and cons. We had personally experienced the trade-offs researchers must make between scientific interests, economic needs, and personal stability, and wanted to create a different environment in which to carry out our work. That’s why in 2024, we founded the UK’s first worker-owned co-operative research organisation, Asterisk Labs [1], where we apply the principles of democratic worker control to the best aspects of traditional research environments; the freedom and scientific rigour of a university group, the stability and societal impact of institutional laboratories, and the speed of innovation in industry.
We have no investors or shareholders, and are not-for-profit; all the money we make is reinvested back into the scientists and the science itself. We decide which contracts, awards and grants we apply for and accept, ensuring we are true to our ethical and scientific principles. We have a completely flat structure, meaning there is no CEO or hierarchy; all members are offered directorship, everyone is paid equally, and we make decisions collectively. We share the responsibility of the administrative, legal and financial management of the lab, reducing the cost of overheads, increasing transparency and allowing all members to gain experience in running a laboratory. We have a 4 day work week, remote and flexible working, 38 days leave and a competitive salary and pension, ensuring excellent work/life balance and working conditions.
We are not the only worker owned research organisation, there are others such as Datlas [2] in France and NWRA in the USA [3] but we hope to play a small part in showing it is possible to create an alternative structure in which scientists can thrive.
In this presentation we will talk about why we set up Asterisk Labs as a co-operative, how we did it, what projects we are working on, and our commitment to open science. We believe our model inherently lends itself to ethical, equitable and impactful scientific research and better working conditions for scientists.
1. www.asterisk.coop
2. www.datlas.fr
3. www.nwra.com
How to cite: Campbell, J., Bertozzi, B., Borne--Pons, P., Francis, A., and Czerkawski, M.: Worker Co-operative Research Laboratories; An Alternative Model for Ambitious Science, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-12580, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-12580, 2026.
It is common that research projects related to geoscience require a contribution to social impact. This is often especially true in relation to climate change mitigation and adaptation. From large-scale science-policy projects to participatory citizen workshops, scholars do their best to understand and professionally execute collaboration and outreach strategies. I argue that despite of the benefits, the process of social impact is largely misunderstood, undervalued and poorly resourced in academia. This can lead to negative effects on desired social impacts, on reseachers’ well-being, on stakeholder experiences and on resources aimed at important basic research. To improve the situation, social impact of research should not be diminished but rather rethought in a way that properly meets the standards of professional ethics and ethics related to collaboration between different sectors of society. The term impact washing (c.f. greenwashing) is used here to refer to providing false, ineffective, irrelevant and vague promises, information and actions to promote social impact to improve your own status, get funding and to distract attention away from concrete and sustainable action.
The topic is approached by providing examples of practical work with transdisciplinary projects in the Finnish academia and beyond, especially in the realm of geosciences and climate change. This presentation aims to act as a conversation starter and to focus on practical steps that we could take to improve social impact and move away from tick-the-box impact strategies. Such steps might include shifting the focus of implementing social impact work from researchers to professional facilitators and societal experts, education, and rethinking funding models and career paths in the academia. Coming from an ex-ethics researcher point of view, the presentation also provides simple tools that can help researchers rethink their work in the context of larger societal discussion and ethical questions. We will look into to this via questions such as: What is the resposibility of institutions and researchers in choosing which type of social impact to focus (or not focus) on? What consequences can false promises of social impact or poorly executed social impact initiatives have on climate change, policies and academia? What ethical concerns are related to interactions between disciplinaries, sectors, communities and individuals?
How to cite: Rantanen, R.: Social impact or impact washing? The case for a deeper ethical understanding and concrete action , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-20469, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-20469, 2026.
A set of practical and actionable recommendations for the ethical application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the geosciences is presented by the Task Group on AI Ethics in Geosciences under the IUGS Commission on Geoethics. While geoscientists have long used statistical and machine learning methods, the rapid adoption of frontier and generative AI introduces amplified risks alongside opportunities for scientific discovery and productivity. AI holds immense potential to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), for example by predicting natural resource locations, enhancing understanding of deep geological time, and assisting with natural hazard prediction such as earthquakes and landslides.
However, the rapid development and deployment of AI, combined with high-profile ethical concerns, demands clear, actionable guidance. Current high-level ethical frameworks, such as those from UNESCO, lack the practical detail needed for implementation in the geosciences. This report addresses that gap by providing guidance for academic, industry, governmental, and non-governmental geoscientists, society leaders, and policymakers.
The methodology adopted a robust approach informed by Critical Realism—encouraging attention to hidden structures and power dynamics—and Virtue Ethics—focusing on the character of a “good and wise geoscientist.” The investigation combined a literature review, longitudinal analysis of deployed AI systems, and counterfactual future thinking, all triangulated against the UNESCO Recommendations on AI Ethics and the International Science Council (ISC) AI Analytical Framework.
Eight key themes were identified to address current and anticipated ethical challenges in the geosciences. These recommendations aim to foster a responsible, just, and sustainable integration of AI that serves the public good and upholds scientific integrity:
- Use AI Responsibly: Treat AI as a tool to support, not replace, geoscientist judgment, avoiding fully autonomous decisions that impact people or ecosystems.
- Promote Transparency and Explainability: Ensure research is open, traceable, and reproducible, with clear disclosure of data sources, limitations, and uncertainties, particularly for “black box” models.
- Consider Bias and Fairness: Use diverse, representative datasets and actively address biases that could affect marginalized or Indigenous communities.
- Obtain Informed Consent and Protect Personal Data: Explicit consent is required for AI training data, and a privacy-by-design approach should be applied, especially for sensitive information.
- Practice Participatory Design and Community Engagement: Engage meaningfully with communities affected by AI outputs, following the principle “Nothing about us without us.”
- Advocate for Environmental Protection: Weigh the environmental costs of AI (energy, water, e-waste) against its scientific benefits, promoting sustainable practices such as energy-efficient algorithms.
- Integrity in Science, Publishing, and Education: Disclose AI use in research, verify AI-generated assertions, and ensure AI does not undermine critical thinking or scientific honesty.
- Consider Geopolitics: International institutions should remain neutral, avoiding endorsement of cloud platforms that centralize data and risk eroding data sovereignty or reinforcing inequities (“algorithmic colonization”).
The report (https://www.geoethics.org/_files/ugd/5195a5_5dcf66f87cca492c958319c3f4cdeffb.pdf) proposes a high-level roadmap for continuous improvement, including practical ethical impact and risk assessments. These recommendations serve as a call to action to safeguard geosciences and ensure responsible stewardship of the Earth.
How to cite: Cleverley, P., Kochupillai, M., Lindsay, M., and Ruttkamp-Bloem, E.: Fostering the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence in the Geosciences, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-1896, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-1896, 2026.
Many decisions in agriculture and environmental management now rely on digital information including satellite indicators, reanalysis climate datasets, in-situ sensors and analytics from digital farm platforms. These data are used in predictive models to forecast yields, detect crop stress or classify land use. Prediction is useful, but it does not answer a central question in many decision-making contexts: what would have happened if we acted differently?
Causal machine learning has been proposed as a way to address this gap (Sitokonstantinou et al., 2025). Instead of predicting outcomes, causal ML aims to estimate the effects of policies, management practices or climate shocks and to support decisions about interventions. In my own work, ranging from estimating the impact of humanitarian aid on food security to evaluating the heterogeneous effect of crop practices and digital agricultural advisory services on ecosystem services, causal ML offers a structured way to work with these questions.
At the same time, causal ML raises ethical and epistemic issues that are common across environmental data science. The causal questions that can be asked and the actions that appear reasonable, depend strongly on how socio-ecological processes are translated into variables, interventions and mechanisms. This contribution examines this process of translation in causal ML for environmental and agricultural applications and shows how it is shaped by ontological choices, data availability and institutional priorities.
Ontological choices affect how causal entities are defined. For example, in evaluations of digital agricultural advisory services, “adoption of advice” is often treated as a binary variable. This framing reduces complex farmer decision making, interpretation, partial use, experimentation and risk management, into a single model variable. As a result, the causal effect being estimated reflects the model’s definition of adoption rather than farmers’ actual behaviour.
Data availability further limits what can be studied causally. In analyses of crop diversification or rotation effects, Earth observation metrics such as vegetation indices are often used as proxies for management practices because detailed field level data are unavailable. Consequently, estimated treatment effects capture only the practices that leave a detectable signal in the data, while excluding important management choices that cannot be observed from space.
Institutional priorities also shape causal models. Agricultural research programs and policy initiatives often focus on certain crops or regions that are politically or economically prioritized, leaving smallholder farms or minor crops underrepresented. This means that the causal interventions included in the model reflect institutional focus rather than the full range of agronomic or environmental processes that may be important.
These modelling choices are not mistakes; they reflect real constraints in data and governance. However, they influence how causality, responsibility and intervention are understood. I argue for causal modelling practices that make these translation choices explicit and that pay closer attention to context, plurality and responsibility so causal ML can better support environmental decision-making.
Reference
Sitokonstantinou, V. et al. (2025). Causal machine learning for sustainable agriculture. NeurIPS 2025 Workshop: Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning. https://openreview.net/forum?id=CE5T6BPFBk
How to cite: Sitokonstantinou, V.: Translating causal models into environmental practice, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-10555, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-10555, 2026.
Climate change requires urgent and coordinated global action. Increasingly, the world is considering technology-based climate intervention approaches, often called geoengineering, for many different potential applications—from terrestrial, to oceans, to stratospheric research areas of interest. Many of these approaches are untested and the consequences are not yet well understood. While climate intervention research has been justified as necessary to expand the range of options available to policy makers in the future, many questions remain on efficacy, risks and potential harm versus potential benefits.
The need for an ethical framework to help guide this area of growing research interest has never been more acute, as both governmental and private sector funding has accelerated in this area over the past 18 months. This presentation will review recent developments in this field of climate geoengineering research and the continued challenges and opportunities for ensuring ethical research governance practices, in addition to the need to address emissions reduction.
We will discuss the foundations for the AGU Ethical Framework Principles for Climate Intervention Research (now available in 10 languages) the key principles, the process by which they were developed, and the ongoing process for global dissemination and engagement.
How to cite: Williams, B., Shimamoto, M., Lachance, J., Shultz, L., and Harlan, H.: An Ethical Framework for Climate Intervention Research: Keeping Pace with Rapidly Evolving Needs , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-5772, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-5772, 2026.
Emerging biological approaches to climate intervention raise core geoethical questions as synthetic biology advances toward the release of engineered cyanobacteria and other organisms designed to enhance carbon sequestration. As biogeoengineering moves toward field-scale deployment, geoscientists will increasingly be responsible for modeling, assessing, and monitoring impacts across ocean biogeochemistry, ecological networks, and Earth-system processes. Because living organisms can reproduce, evolve, and spread unpredictably across ecological and political boundaries, biogeoengineering demands a dedicated geoethical framework distinct from those used for conventional, non-living geoengineering interventions.
This contribution offers an anticipatory geoethical framework for living climate interventions, drawing on comparative insights from biotechnology regulation, environmental law, and international maritime law, which provides both jurisdictional complexity and a normative anchor for geoethical oversight of ocean-based interventions. Its novelty lies in integrating governance approaches from biotechnology and geoscience, foregrounding Global South perspectives and Indigenous epistemologies, and specifying concrete geoscientific responsibilities that must accompany biological climate interventions. The framework identifies four interdependent governance mechanisms that can be built upon existing international treaties to create enforceable, rather than voluntary, accountability. These mechanisms include liability rules to address transboundary harm and geo-colonial risks; mandatory impact assessments that integrate ocean biogeochemistry, ecological modeling, and biosafety analysis; conditional authorizations tied to geoscientifically informed thresholds of environmental safety; and shared-governance structures determining who holds authority to release engineered organisms into international waters or manipulate ocean ecosystems.
These mechanisms depend on active engagement by geoscientists, whose professional obligations must extend beyond traditional observational roles. Geoscientists must establish baseline environmental conditions, design monitoring networks capable of detecting unintended ecological cascades or genetic dispersal, model uncertainties across interconnected ocean systems, and communicate risks transparently. Because biological interventions interact with complex marine processes that are only partially understood, these responsibilities also include ethical deliberation and the co-production of monitoring criteria with affected communities. Meaningful inclusion of local and Indigenous knowledge systems is essential to ensure that populations most vulnerable to potential harms exercise real, rather than symbolic, influence over decisions that may affect their environments and livelihoods.
The Cartagena Protocol’s procedures for the transboundary movement of genetically modified organisms provide an important precedent for biosafety oversight. Yet extending these principles to biogeoengineering requires clarifying whether climate-intervention organisms fall within existing definitions or necessitate new regulatory provisions, particularly given their release into maritime spaces governed by complex jurisdictional regimes. Given risks of ecological cascades, genetic contamination, and unequal distributions of harm across regions, binding safeguards are necessary for any intervention that modifies ocean ecosystems through engineered microbes or biologically driven processes.
By articulating a pathway for just and responsible stewardship, this framework advances SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water), and SDG 16 (Strong Institutions). It also contributes directly to responsible geoscience practice by offering foundations for future codes of conduct, funding criteria, and international decision-making norms. Ultimately, it shifts the central question from whether to intervene to how to govern such interventions ethically, equitably, and with full recognition of their planetary-scale implications.
How to cite: Greenbaum, D.: Toward a Geoethical Framework for Living Climate Interventions under International Maritime Law, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-1493, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-1493, 2026.
The European Union’s transition to a green, digital, and secure economy depends on reliable access to critical raw materials (CRMs), which are essential for technologies such as batteries, semiconductors, renewable energy systems, and defence equipment. Despite their strategic importance, the EU remains highly dependent on imports, sourcing 65–100% of many CRMs from non-EU countries, often from a small number of geopolitically sensitive suppliers. This concentration exposes Europe to significant economic and strategic risks.
Disruptions to CRM supply chains caused by geopolitical tensions, export restrictions, or trade conflicts could have severe consequences. The policy brief estimates potential annual economic losses of €100–200 billion across manufacturing, transport, and energy sectors. Even a 1% reduction in economic growth linked to supply chain instability would amount to approximately €175 billion in lost value per year. These risks threaten industrial competitiveness, employment, price stability, and the EU’s ability to meet climate and digital transition targets.
To address these vulnerabilities, the brief proposes four strategic policy pillars to strengthen the EU’s resilience to CRM supply disruptions.
The first pillar focuses on securing the value of resources at the point of production. It aims to increase domestic extraction, processing, and recycling of CRMs within the EU and trusted partner regions. Key recommendations include establishing a €500 billion European “Value of Resources” fund, accelerating permitting and co-funding of sustainable mining and refining projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act, and strengthening secondary raw materials markets through harmonised recycling standards and urban mining. Strategic stockpiling, circular economy measures, and the development of regional production clusters are also proposed, with the objective of increasing EU self-sufficiency by 20% by 2030.
The second pillar seeks to align the interests of rights-holders and stakeholders across the CRM value chain. It calls for transparent governance frameworks, including due diligence and traceability requirements under EU legislation, fair benefit-sharing with partner countries through Global Gateway investments, and stronger social licence to operate via robust CSR and ESG practices. Public–private coordination mechanisms, such as CRM roundtables, are recommended to align industrial needs with policy objectives.
The third pillar addresses risk management and opportunity capture. It proposes enhanced risk monitoring through the International Raw Materials Observatory, stronger screening of foreign investments in strategic CRM assets, and increased support for innovation, industrial pilots, and recycling technologies. Blended public and private financing is intended to diversify supply sources and build strategic reserves, reducing disruption risks.
The fourth pillar focuses on safeguarding knowledge, digital infrastructure, and communication. Protecting intellectual property, deploying EU-wide digital traceability systems, investing in skills and research networks, and improving public awareness are seen as essential to maintaining Europe’s technological leadership.
Overall, the brief concludes that CRM dependency represents a systemic risk comparable to energy insecurity. Implementing these four pillars would strengthen the EU’s strategic autonomy, economic resilience, and sustainable growth.
How to cite: Hermann, L. and Marijanski, M.: Four-pillar policy recommendation to increase the European Union’s critical raw material resilience, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-2615, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-2615, 2026.
Rapid shifts in U.S. climate policy have introduced uncertainty around the continuity of national assessments and participation in international scientific processes, raising concerns about maintaining the evidence-base for informed decision-making. This presentation examines how scientific societies, research institutions, and individual researchers are coordinating across disciplinary and national boundaries to safeguard the integrity and accessibility of climate science during periods of geopolitical and policy volatility. It will highlight collaborative strategies that reinforce resilience across the climate enterprise. These include a new cross-society journal access initiative led by AGU and the American Meteorological Society, designed to ensure uninterrupted global access to peer-reviewed climate . The presentation also explores coordinated nomination pathways and access agreements that enable U.S. -based scientists to continue contributing to international assessment processes, such as IPCC’s Seventh Assessment Report, despite shifting domestic policy priorities. Beyond these examples, the presentation situates these efforts within a broader framework of institutional coordination and transnational scientific networks. By leveraging partnerships across disciplinary and national boundaries, the research community is developing adaptive mechanisms to sustain engagement, preserve scientific continuity, and uphold the principles of open science. These practical models offer a roadmap for global research communities navigating similar disruptions, underscoring the critical role of scientific societies in bridging gaps between research, policy and international engagement.
How to cite: Lachance, J., Jones, B., and Shimamoto, M.: Meeting the Moment: Sustaining Climate Science and Engagement in Shifting Policy Environments, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-7672, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-7672, 2026.
Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) is a promising yet controversial climate intervention with complex scientific, ethical, legal, and socio-political implications. Effective governance is essential to address these challenges prior to any experimentation proceeds, particularly for countries in the Global South, like Pakistan, where SRM could have profound public health and governance impacts. Global governance discussions are largely driven by Global North institutions, which often marginalize the concerns of the Global South. This study assesses Pakistan's readiness for SRM governance by analyzing the coherence of its existing climate change and health policies, alongside expert perceptions. Using a mixed-methods approach, including policy content analysis, expert focus group discussions, and stakeholder engagement workshops to facilitate deliberation among policymakers, scientists, health professionals, legal experts, civil society, and youth. Additionally, the study analyzes 14 climate change and health policies and gathers feedback from 49 experts through workshops and roundtable discussions. Preliminary policy analysis findings highlight critical gaps in Pakistan’s Climate Change and Public Health governance, current policies fail to address SRM, lack cross-sectoral coordination, and do not include adequate risk assessments, stakeholder engagement, or ethical safeguards. Despite the presence of key policy instruments, Pakistan is unprepared for SRM research, reinforcing global power asymmetries between the Global North and Global South. The feedback from 49 experts highlights key gaps in Pakistan's Climate Change and Public Health governance, with 53% reporting no prior involvement in SRM projects, underscoring a lack of expertise. 51% viewed SRM as having a moderate role in addressing health challenges, yet no experts saw it as a significant solution. 55% and 61% identified government ministries and provincial departments as crucial for SRM integration, while 39% emphasized the importance of NGOs and civil society. Despite 57% rating existing coordination between health and climate sectors as effective, unclear roles, insufficient resources, and limited capacity remain key barriers. The need for clear institutional mandates (35%) and cross-sectoral coordination (37%) was also stressed, highlighting critical gaps in SRM policy governance. Experts emphasized the need for stronger coordination between government ministries, NGOs, and civil society, alongside clear institutional mandates, capacity-building, and funding for SRM related research. The analysis of policies further reveals the lack of alignment between climate change and public health frameworks, with experts highlighting the need for better integration and local capacity for research and monitoring.In conclusion, our finding emphasizes the importance of inclusive dialogue, ethical oversight, and institutional reform to ensure that Pakistan—and the broader Global South—are not excluded from shaping global SRM governance. The study argues for Global South representation, the integration of health and ethical considerations into SRM policy, and the establishment of participatory decision-making structures to promote fair, scientifically informed, and accountable governance at both national and international levels.
How to cite: Waheed, A., Hussain, A., Sipra, H., and Latif, K.: Towards Inclusive and Ethical SRM Governance in Pakistan: Bridging Policy Gaps and Global South Representation , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-1584, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-1584, 2026.
Effective climate mitigation requires rapid, evidence‑based decisions across government, business, and civil society. Yet widespread misconceptions, disinformation, and insufficient understanding of high‑impact climate solutions continue to impede meaningful action among leaders. Traditional risk communication approaches often fail to overcome these barriers, particularly where climate change is politically polarized or socially contested. Here, we investigate whether interactive climate policy simulations with the En‑ROADS model can strengthen leaders’ knowledge, affective engagement, and motivation to take climate action.
Using a mixed‑methods design, we engaged 949 participants in 37 En‑ROADS workshops and Climate Action Simulations, an interactive role-play designed around the En-ROADS simulator. Participants in the role-play are assigned to different delegations at a mock UN climate conference, including governments, representatives from conventional energy, clean tech, industry and finance, and forest and agriculture. Pre‑/post‑survey responses (N≈290 matched) and semi‑structured interviews (N=42) were used to evaluate changes in knowledge, affect, and intended actions.
Survey‑based results show that interactive engagements significantly improved participants’ understanding of which climate policies have high versus low mitigation impact. Participants made substantial gains in identifying high‑impact solutions such as carbon pricing, cutting methane and non‑CO₂ greenhouse gases, and improving building energy efficiency. Participants also improved their ability to identify which solutions have little impact, even when those solutions are commonly favored. Such low-impact solutions do little to reduce near-term emissions and include afforestation, soil carbon sequestration, and technological carbon removal.
Engagement with En‑ROADS also increased participants’ affective engagement with climate change. Participants reported statistically significant increases in both the personal importance they attach to the issue and their sense of empowerment to contribute to climate solutions. These effects were similar across virtual and in‑person workshops, indicating a potential to scale across formats.
Interview‑based analyses confirm the survey results. Interviewees described the simulation experience as improving their understanding of the urgency, scale, and systemic nature of the climate challenge. Many emphasized that En‑ROADS’s interactive features made complex dynamics of the climate and energy systems easier to grasp than other modes of learning. The workshops generated strong emotional responses, including a sense of urgency and hope, which, in turn, motivated participants to act. Social interactions during the sessions played a critical role: collaborative scenario development fostered a sense of collective efficacy, reinforcing participants’ willingness to advocate for organizational or policy change.
Most interviewees reported taking or planning climate‑related actions after to the workshop. These actions include reducing their personal emissions, strategic organizational changes (e.g., establishing an internal carbon price or shifting investment strategies), and advocating for governmental or corporate policy change. Participants who were focused on sustainability prior to En-ROADS simulations also made gains, reporting improved clarity on high‑impact solutions and a strengthened sense of collective efficacy for climate action.
Overall, the results demonstrate that interactive En‑ROADS workshops can improve leaders’ understanding of effective climate mitigation strategies, activate emotional engagement, and motivate both individual and institutional climate action. This suggests that simulation‑based approaches can help bridge the persistent gap between climate knowledge and climate action among key societal actors.
How to cite: Rooney-Varga, J., Cheney, L., Coleman, R., Jones, A., Kapmeier, F., Newsome, P., Noiseux, K., Patten, B., Rath, K., and Sterman, J.: Interactive simulation with En-ROADS spurs climate action among decision-makers, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-22759, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-22759, 2026.
ClimarisQ is both a web- and mobile-based game developed by the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace to support climate change communication through interactive decision-making. This paper presents an exploratory evaluation of the game based on a post-release questionnaire completed by 77 users. Respondents rated ClimarisQ positively in terms of usability and scientific credibility. Self-reported outcomes indicate that the game mainly supported reflection on the complexity, trade-offs, and uncertainty of climate-related decision-making, rather than the acquisition of factual knowledge, particularly among users with prior expertise. The respondent group was predominantly composed of highly educated and climate-aware adults, which limits generalization to other audiences. These results suggest that ClimarisQ can function as a complementary tool for climate education and outreach, especially when used in facilitated settings that encourage discussion and interpretation.
How to cite: Faranda, D., Taligrot, L., Yiou, P., and Caud, N.: ClimarisQ: What can we learn by playing a game for climate education?, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-2863, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-2863, 2026.
This year the Ukrainian Antarctic Station “Akademik Vernadsky” (UASAV) celebrates its 30-year anniversary as a Ukrainian research facility. Formerly the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) station Faraday, it hosts the longest uninterrupted meteorological observations in Antarctica, with records beginning in 1947. Ukraine assumed responsibility for the station in 1996 after signing a Memorandum with BAS committing to the continuation of core observations at least 10 years. Thereby preserving and enhancing one of the most valuable long-term climate datasets in the Southern Hemisphere.
Over three decades, UASAV has developed into a multidisciplinary research platform contributing to global understanding of interactions within climate system components: atmosphere–ocean–cryosphere-biosphere-lithosphere interactions. Particularly, Antarctic ecosystems are in focus of UASAV research.
Ukrainian scientists actively participate in major international initiatives. Engagement in YOPP-SH (Year of Polar Prediction – Southern Hemisphere) contributes to international efforts to improve weather and climate forecasting through coordinated polar observations particularly in winter with radio sounding of atmosphere which UASAV contributed over 10% of all additional launches among all Antarctic stations. Within HORIZON 2020 PolarRES, research focused on improving polar climate predictability and understanding polar feedbacks in the Earth system. The ongoing OCEAN ICE project addresses coupled ocean–sea ice processes and their role in climate regulation; as a Horizon 2020 project, it places strong emphasis on communication to demonstrate to European society the value of polar research for climate knowledge, environmental policy, and sustainability. Participation in ERASMUS+ project OPTIMA supported integrated Antarctic observations and modeling into Open Science standards particularly in displaced Ukrainian universities.
Despite the ongoing russian aggression against Ukraine and the broader context of global polycrisis, the National Antarctic Scientific Center (NASC) of Ukraine continues to ensure uninterrupted station operations, long-term observations, and international scientific cooperation, particularly within the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). The high level of Ukrainian Antarctic research is further supported by the research vessel Noosfera (formerly the British James Clark Ross), enabling marine expeditions, oceanographic measurements, and logistical independence.
Beyond research, NASC actively develops climate and polar science communication through traditional media and social platforms, organizes educational outreach with schools, and conducts national photo and video competitions. These activities engage younger generations, foster environmental awareness, and promote values of nature conservation and geoethical responsibility. The 30-year history of UASAV illustrates how sustained science, education, and communication can transform crisis into action and reinforce the societal relevance of polar research.
How to cite: Krakovska, S., Chyhareva, A., Marushevska, O., Torgonenko, A., and Dykyi, E.: From Polar Science to Public Action: 30 Years of the Ukrainian Antarctic Station Akademik Vernadsky in Times of Polycrisis, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-21666, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-21666, 2026.
Skeptical Science is a highly-visited website featuring 250 rebuttals of misinformation about climate change and climate solutions. The rebuttals are written at multiple levels—basic, intermediate, and advanced—in order to reach as wide an audience as possible. Since November 2021, we have collected survey data from visitors, assessing the effectiveness of rebuttals in reducing acceptance in climate myths and increasing acceptance of climate facts. A key goal of misinformation interventions is to increase reader discernment, the difference between belief in facts and belief in myths. While there was overall an increase in discernment, with the decrease in agreement with myths greater than the decrease in agreement with facts, we also found that belief in climate facts decreased for at least some rebuttals - an unwelcome result running counter to Skeptical Science’s goals. Due to the survey design and not collecting any information about why readers selected a specific option, we can only make educated guesses about what may have led to selecting a specific option. In parallel to running the experiment on our website, we have also been working on a website relaunch project which will address some of the shortcomings already identified. One new feature will be the inclusion - where applicable - of logical fallacies used in climate myths, so that rebuttals will include all three elements of a successful debunking: fact, myth and fallacy. In my presentation, I'll also highlight some of the other updated or new features this website relaunch will include.
How to cite: Winkler, B. and Cook, J.: Results of the Skeptical Science experiment and impacts on relaunched website, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-4110, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-4110, 2026.
The Palestine Space Institute (PSI) is a pioneering think tank established to challenge and disrupt the prevailing colonial and militaristic narrative in the space industry. An important aspect of this vision is to equip community members with cross-disciplinary tools to understand science in society and disentangle power, hierarchy, and the interplay between geopolitics and science. We propose an urgent reframing of science communication as political education, and offer reflections from PSI’s implementation of this approach since 2023 and the increasing need for such interventions due to current and emerging geopolitical conditions. These activities include seminars and discussion spaces with researchers, community partners, and global stakeholders; the launch of the Space and Military-Industrial Complex Database, a social-scientific resource built for scientists; an in-person community-building event; and research activities centered on material, ethical, and political examination of the dual-use paradigm in the space industry, including in the use of EO satellites and data. We also present how conceptual interventions, such as understanding, documenting, and obstructing “spacewashing,” can disrupt how science is used to manufacture consent for colonial violence.
PSI’s framework equips STEM practitioners, educators, students, and broader audiences with a holistic understanding of the geopolitical role of science, with participatory, action-centered, and community-building outcomes. This approach also applies characteristics of traditional science communication to improve political literacy for the public. We argue that intellectual resistance is a crucial component of resisting colonialism and neocolonialism, both of which are upheld by science and the false narrative of apolitical science and technology.
How to cite: Persaud, D. M., El-Shawa, S., Link, A., and Rotola, G.: Political Education in Science: Two Years of Palestine Space Institute, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-21981, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-21981, 2026.
In the contemporary geopolitical landscape, the view of science as a "neutral" space, detached from political and ethical implications, is increasingly being challenged by members of the scientific community. This contribution analyzes the mobilization within the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) and other Public Research Institutions (EPRs) following the escalation of violence in Southwest Asia amid rising tensions across Eurasia and beyond.
Starting from an open letter signed by over 400 researchers and staff members, the movement demands a paradigm shift: from a passive "scientific diplomacy" to an active "ethical accountability". The proponents argue that research institutions have a direct responsibility in the construction of a democratic society that respects human rights and international law. The mobilization specifically addresses the contradictions of maintaining cooperation agreements with institutions directly or indirectly involved in documented violations of international humanitarian law, particularly in the context of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Key issues raised include the need for:
Ethical Procurement and Due Diligence: Implementing protocols to prevent complicity with entities involved in conflicts condemned by the UN.
Institutional Accountability: Challenging the disparity in institutional responses to different global conflicts (e.g., Ukraine vs. Palestine).
Individual Conscience: Proposing the inclusion of "conscientious objection" for researchers regarding dual-use projects or collaborations with ethically compromised entities.
Scientific monitoring and long-term analysis: Using scientific expertise to monitor the direct effects of war and analyze its long-term consequences. This includes assessing the environmental legacy of conflict, such as the massive production of debris (estimated at more than 61 million tons in Gaza) and the severe contamination of soil and water resources.
Support and academic cooperation: Actively promoting collaborations, mobility, and specialization programs with academic communities (students, research groups, and faculty) in regions affected by conflict, political instability, or documented severe human rights violations, in line with the principles of international academic solidarity.
Through the lens of this institutional struggle, the presentation explores the tension between the "mission" of research entities (promotion of knowledge) and their ethical obligations as public actors. It concludes by proposing the establishment of independent Ethics Committees that go beyond "research integrity" (avoiding fraud) to ensure "research morality" (avoiding complicity). Scientific practice is never politically neutral and silence in the face of atrocities is a form of institutional connivance.
How to cite: Corradini, S., Andronico, D., Brunori, C. A., De Astis, G., Di Stefano, R., D'Oriano, C., Lauciani, V., Esposti Ongaro, T., Montagna, C., Nappi, R., Nave, R., Perfetti, P., Procesi, M., Stelitano, D., and Volpe, M.: Beyond Scientific Neutrality: Ethical Responsibility and Geopolitical Accountability in Public Research Institutions, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-21044, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-21044, 2026.
Geopolitical crises increasingly determine where geoscientists can work, who may collaborate, and which forms of knowledge are considered appropriate. In response, scientific institutions have refined best practices that enable engagement with war, displacement, and environmental harm while preserving neutrality, excellence, and uninterrupted research activity—without jeopardizing institutional rankings, benchmarking exercises, or global competitiveness indicators.
Three core guidelines are outlined. First, ethical engagement should be articulated through statements, panels, and codes of conduct that acknowledge suffering in general terms while avoiding reference to specific actors, histories, or responsibilities. Second, international collaboration should be promoted in principle, provided it remains compatible with security frameworks, funding rules, visa regimes, journal indices, and ranking-sensitive performance metrics. Third, moral and political tensions are most efficiently managed by delegating responsibility to individual researchers, early-career scientists, and affected communities, thereby allowing institutions to remain impartial while safeguarding reputation, citation aggregates, and position in global league tables.
Taken together, these practices demonstrate how geosciences can continue to produce knowledge during crises while carefully limiting institutional accountability. The framework highlights neutrality not as an ethical position, but as an optimized governance strategy for maintaining visibility, stability, and rank.
This is satire, or is it?
How to cite: Gani, S.: Best practices for geosciences in the time of crises, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-8661, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-8661, 2026.
Geoethics examines the ethical, cultural, and social dimensions of human interaction with the Earth system, promoting responsible and sustainable stewardship (Peppoloni and Di Capua, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98044-3). To address escalating global socio-ecological crises, the Relational Geoscientific Pragmatism (RGP) framework is proposed (Peppoloni and Di Capua, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-03754-1_2). RGP advocates context-sensitive, pragmatic solutions that harmonize scientific understanding with ethical principles and societal values, drawing inspiration from Ecological Humanism, a worldview recognizing human-nature interdependence and promoting progress that respects both human needs and ecosystem limits.
RGP is a structured, values-driven pathway designed to respond responsibly to geoethical challenges. Rather than prescribing rigid methods, it operationalizes universal geoethical principles and shared values in ways sensitive to local contexts. By integrating geosciences with social and environmental responsibility, RGP provides guidance for navigating complex practical challenges while ensuring ecological integrity and the well-being of present and future generations.
The RGP framework can be applied through a five-phase flow process that consistently integrates scientific rigor and ethical considerations into decision-making:
- Phase I: Foundation & Analysis (Geoscience). This phase establishes essential geoscientific and contextual understanding of the challenge. It involves gathering objective, verifiable, and up-to-date data, applying rigorous analysis, and exercising professional judgment. The goal is informed, evidence-based decision-making on issues such as resource management or disaster risk reduction.
- Phase II: Integration & Scope (Interdisciplinarity). Environmental challenges are inherently complex, requiring holistic approaches. This phase integrates knowledge from geosciences, social sciences, economics, law, and philosophy. Emphasis is placed on relationality between disciplines, structuring interdisciplinary collaboration to address specific geoethical challenges effectively.
- Phase III: Values & Stakeholders (Relationality). This phase centers social justice by identifying stakeholders, particularly marginalized communities, and clarifying relevant universal principles (dignity, freedom, responsibility) alongside aspirational principles (awareness, justice, respect). Relationality extends to future generations and non-human realms, promoting intergenerational and environmental responsibility.
- Phase IV: Deliberation & Scenario (Pragmatism). Action-oriented and solution-focused, this phase critically analyzes ethical dilemmas in human-environment interactions. It develops potential future scenarios, evaluating outcomes through the lenses of sustainability, equity, and environmental integrity.
- Phase V: Action & Evaluation (Pragmatism). The final phase ensures participatory, transparent implementation. Scientists, policymakers, and communities collaboratively assess solutions for technical feasibility and societal alignment, balancing ecological integrity with social well-being.
In conclusion, the RGP flow process provides decision-makers with a systematic methodology for addressing contemporary geoethical challenges. By integrating scientific rigor, ethical reflection, and stakeholder engagement, it fosters conscious, informed, and responsible planetary citizenship.
How to cite: Di Capua, G. and Peppoloni, S.: A Geoethics-Informed Flow Process for Applying the Relational Geoscientific Pragmatism (RGP) Framework, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-1745, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-1745, 2026.
Disaster and risk management has been a very necessary field of both debate and action initiatives in today tricky consequences of climate change. While some regions of the earth are affected by heavy drought, other regions are affected by heavy rains that cause damages on infrastructure, economy, ecosystem and human lives. This contribute to vulnerability of cities.
Nowadays, in many cities of DR Congo, there is increasing of flooding risk and hydrological risk associated like erosion, gully erosion. In DR Congo (a tropical context) the months of November and December and between January and April, heavy rains use to occur and cause severe damages to people and theirs goods in vulnerable zones for instance the major river basin. Before the end of 2023 from December 24 to December 29, 2023 episodes of rains affected Bukavu and DRC cities like Kananga and Kinshasa. The different episodes of flooding raise the question of risk management. In this process a necessity to consider geoethics as interconnection of geosciences with social, philosophy, and politics may allow to reinforce the debate on flood risk management.
Taking account of the precedent issues, it is important to question: in which way geoethical values can help to understand the link between population representation and perception of flooding risk and disaster management in Bukavu, DR Congo? To respond to this, this reflection will scrutinize in one hand, the geoethical principles as the basis of understanding of flood risk perception and representation in Bukavu and on the other hand, it will analyze the implication of different actors in the awareness building on disaster management.
The investigation concerning population representation and perception of flood risk, will better inform on people resilience and adaptive actions and how they cope with their natural risks impacts. In this reflection, we bring into the consideration of geoethical values to better understand population representation and perception of flood risk.
Key words: Disaster and risk management, Geoethics, Flood risk, Geoethical values or Geoethical principles, Bukavu, DR Congo
How to cite: Nshokano Mweze, J.-R.: Geoethical Consideration in the Understanding of Population Representation and Perception of Flooding Risk Management in Bukavu, DR Congo, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-36, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-36, 2026.
Practicing geoscience professionals, geoscience researchers, and any informed citizen should be aware of the ethical implications of their actions and intentionally counteract possible negative consequences. This mindset should become more prevalant despite current events. I am convinced that we, the geoscience community, can attract more students into geoscience if they see the ethical dimension of our field. I therefore advocate that instructors of geoscience courses discuss ethics with their students and not leave the teaching of ethical thinking just to dedicated courses that are often taught by philosophers. I posit that students need both a theoretical foundation of ethics, as well as role models that show that we care about ethics and how we address ethical questions in our work, to be able to make informed decisions later. Instructors in any geoscience course can encourage students to think through scenarios, including case studies and wicked problems. Examples range from more general (eg, representation of data, lab group dynamics, credits and authorship, possible conflict of interest) over field-work related and Indigenous questions (eg, inclusiveness, property owners' right to know, land rights, Indigenous knowledge) to politial issues with a geoscience component (eg, ethical mining, including in the deep ocean and space, nuclear waste disposal, green energy, disaster mitigation, cross-border water and resource questions) that can be integrated in overview as well as specialised geoscience courses. By making our students aware of the intersection between geoscience and ethics they will be better prepared to launch a fulfilling career.
How to cite: Bank, C.-G.: Geoethics across the Geoscience Curriculum, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-10832, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-10832, 2026.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world1”. But how can educational methods and contents motivate and steer society in a positive direction, and how do we accelerate the educational reform process?
Here we present tools, projects, and movements from academic curricula, ranging from storytelling and experiential coursework to grassroots initiatives in green education.
- For the UN climate conference COP28 in Dubai in 2023, students, employees, scientists, climate activists, writers and Indigenous authors spurred climate action beyond its walls and national borders through creative means. The outcome was a fluid book2 calling on politicians, policymakers and organisations to action.
- At the Amsterdam University College (Netherlands), teachers (re-)designed, taught and coordinated the second-year bachelor course ‘Big Questions in the Anthropocene’. 250 students critically evaluated their planetary relationships and explored new ways to transform and sustain them. An experiential format asked students to design and guide a city-based excursion while reflecting on and reviewing that of their peers’ and developing an independent research project.
- At the grassroots level, EDI (Equality, Diversion and Inclusion) Committees within the program Earth and Environmental Sciences organised lectures, workshops and information sessions on geoethical topics3. These committees connect through networking like national events, conferences and social media (e.g. ‘Earth Science for All 2025’), informing and activating peers around inclusive, cross-broder scientific collaboration and the deconstruction of colonial practices.
- Plato’s Garden is a VU’s grassroots cross-faculty educators’ movement with interdisciplinary expertise spanning six VU faculties and collaborating with the University of Twente. The platform promotes and incorporates nature- and art-based pedagogic methods such as forest bathing, ecopedagogy exercises and nature walks into higher education.
- In line with this, the Sustainability Education Hub is active in integrating sustainability into all VU programs.
The tools mentioned here showcase inspiration and creativity, providing fertile ground for the germination of new identities, ultimately blossoming into hands- and heart-type of activities that embed curricula and (non-)academic communities in nature. The challenge is that all these programs operate more in isolation than in collaboration, lacking an ecosystem to scale these initiatives.
Educational specialists and students need an infrastructure that supports their endeavours. This includes 1) formal embedding within university structures, 2) financial support from host institutes, 3) teachers and students with time to spend on those initiatives, 4) facilitating networking and 5) promoting active implementation in educational curricula.
To stimulate meaningful transformation, we build on a collectivist approach rooted in existing (non-)academic settings and communities. Its strength lies in the diversity of geoethical practices and themes – such as climate action, digital transformation, and social justice – and their expression through educational programs and grassroots initiatives. Here, the classroom becomes a space of critical engagement, enabling us to confront the climate crisis as an ethical, social, and political condition that demands a lived, justice-oriented responsibility. This, in turn, supports an adaptive transformation toward a resilient and synergistic ecojust education.
1 quote attributed to Nelson Mandela
2 VU 2023, Fluidbook for COP28, www.vu.nl/cop28
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoethics
How to cite: Kluiving, S., Beniest, A., Verduijn, K., Torralba, M., Quintelier, K., Tielbeek, J., Foster, S., Ausic, L., Lankreijer, A., Pichel, J., Buursma, W., Lagearias, S., Schinkel, A., Maas, I., Dalby, S., and Bohle, M.: How can education address the planetary crisis and steer it in a positive direction? , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-10881, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-10881, 2026.
Climate change (CC) is a global challenge. It requires communication to drive societal action (IPCC, 2022). However, conveying the complexity of climate science and its socio-economic implications remains difficult. One method that is increasingly being used to communicate and educate about CC is simulation/games, a global activity. The question that arises is: Are CC games geoethical, and in what ways?
The field of geoethics provides a powerful framework for attempting to answer this question. Geoethics holds that geoscientists have an ethical responsibility to communicate knowledge accurately and responsibly (Peppoloni & Di Capua, 2022).
This presentation reports the findings of a study analysing CC simulation/games. Our research has highlighted important deficits in existing resources, deficits that can be qualified as unethical or wanting geoethically. More specifically, we have identified three areas that raise geoethical concerns in regard to three aspects of CC simulation/games. These are:
- Design and implementation of CC simulation/games. This includes the unethical absence of structured debriefing materials and guidelines essential for geoethical communication.
- CC content of simulation/games. This includes the unethical omission of certain CC topics in the simulation/games that we examined, for instance, climate justice and health.
- Geoethical issues. This is the total absence of any discussion or treatment of the geoethics of CC.
We also offer recommendations for improving the geoethics of CC simulation/games.
How to cite: Promduangsri, P., Becu, N., and Crookall, D.: From play to principle or not: Geoethical aspects of climate change simulation/games, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-387, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-387, 2026.
Geoethics is commonly discussed as a field concerned with principles, responsibilities, and normative guidance for geoscientists in their engagement with society and the environment. In this contribution, I take a complementary perspective and explore geoethics as it is lived and negotiated in everyday scientific coordination. Drawing on ethnographic insights from my work as process coordinator within the German Earth System Modeling initiative natESM, I approach geoethics as a situated practice that unfolds in concrete decisions, relationships, and institutional processes rather than as a fixed moral framework.
I focus on moments where technical, organizational, political, and ethical considerations intersect in particularly tangible ways. These include decisions about which numerical models can be sustainably supported within a national infrastructure, the deliberate shift of technical responsibility toward Research Software Engineers to ensure long-term maintainability, and the continuous effort to keep scientific communities involved even when specific models cannot be fully integrated. In this context, the sprint process becomes a central ethnographic site. It brings together different professional cultures, expectations, and temporalities, especially those of scientists and RSEs, and turns collaboration itself into a space where responsibility, care, and authority are constantly renegotiated.
Particular attention is given to the emotional and political work involved in communicating limits, such as defined breakpoints in projects, uncertainty about future trajectories, and the need for redirection. These moments are rarely framed as ethical decisions, yet they profoundly affect professional identities and senses of belonging within the Earth system modeling community. They gain further complexity in an international context shaped by instability and asymmetry, where long-standing partners may face institutional uncertainty while their expertise remains crucial for transnational collaboration.
From this perspective, geoethics appears less as a matter of compliance or formal codes of conduct and more as a form of relational and infrastructural work. It involves balancing care for people, responsibility for public resources, and commitments to scientific quality and sustainability in situations where no solution is purely technical.
By foregrounding coordination and sprint-based collaboration as ethnographic sites of ethical practice, I argue for a broadened understanding of geoethics that includes the mundane and often invisible labor of aligning infrastructures, expertise, and expectations in contemporary geoscience. I propose political ethnography as a way to make visible how ethical responsibility in large-scale scientific initiatives is not only articulated in principles, but enacted in processes.
How to cite: Ehlert, I.: Practicing geoethics in Earth system modeling, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-21402, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-21402, 2026.
Geoscientists contribute every day to advancing the understanding of the Earth and to supporting decisions that deeply affect people, communities, and ecosystems. Their responsibility extends beyond scientific excellence stricto sensu: it also involves ethical awareness, attention to social impacts and care for the human dimension of scientific practice.
In this context, training plays a fundamental role in fostering a healthy, safe and efficient working environment by promoting awareness, mutual respect and shared responsibility within the scientific community.
Organizational well-being is commonly defined as an organization’s ability to promote and maintain the physical, psychological and social well-being of its employees. Studies have shown that the most effective institutions are those characterized by satisfied staff and a welcoming, participatory internal climate. Motivation, collaboration, involvement, effective information flow, flexibility and trust contribute significantly to workers’ mental and physical health and, in a research environment, ultimately enhance the quality and societal impact of research. Achieving genuine well-being requires the combined contribution of multiple actors, policies and institutional frameworks.
At the European level, several initiatives and projects have paved the way for the implementation of concrete policies aimed at preventing gender-based violence, harassment and discrimination in research and higher education environments. In parallel, efforts within the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) seek to reform research evaluation systems toward a more inclusive direction. These reforms aim to recognize a broader range of research outputs and professional profiles, valuing contributions beyond traditional publications, such as datasets, software, teaching, mentorship, and outreach, while striving for more transparent and bias-aware evaluation processes.
Within this framework, this contribution presents the case study of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), a leading Italian Research Institution that has undertaken targeted training initiatives addressing anti-discrimination, mobbing and workplace distress. These initiatives recognize education and capacity building as key drivers for well-being, inclusion, and organizational effectiveness. As part of this approach, two employees have completed dedicated training programs to serve as Confidential Counsellors and are engaged in continuous professional development to remain effective, responsive to emerging challenges, and aligned with evolving social, ethical and organizational contexts. Training has led to tangible outcomes by translating knowledge into practice and activating a collaborative internal network that supports concrete actions toward a healthier and more effective working environment.
Furthermore, a collaborative framework has been established among research institutions to enable the exchange of Confidential Counsellors, fostering mutual support, shared expertise and cross-institutional learning.
This document highlights the results of this cooperative network, emphasizing how the sharing of best practices and ethical principles can provide a robust support system for individuals experiencing harassment or workplace distress.
Synergies among well-being stakeholders have been further strengthened by organizing thematic information days and workshops, contributing to the development of a shared culture of respect and institutional health.
Ensuring dignity and protection in the workplace is not merely a legal obligation but a strategic investment. A research environment grounded in respect, transparency, and care fosters a more responsible scientific community and delivers long-term benefits to society as a whole.
How to cite: Sangianantoni, A., De Paola, V., Rubbia, G., and Maracchia, G.: From Training to Action: Building concrete pathways for Workplace Well-Being, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-7691, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-7691, 2026.
Studies in geoethics offer normative frameworks for the responsible conduct of geoscientists and citizens in their interactions with Earth's telluric aspects [1]. While the expression telluric aspects refers to the material attributes of the planetary habitat, e.g., the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and cryosphere, the related expression tellurian aspects refers to Earth & World, including agents, institutions, and norms. Witnessing planetary-scale anthropogenic change, geoethics configure tellurian practices, that is, how people construct human niches within the planetary habitat. Hence, geoethics mediates between Earth-system knowledge and moral–political judgment, i.e., geoethics are epistemic–moral hybrids [2].
Applying systemism and scientific realism as philosophical guidance, the design principle of geoethics is derived: consistent philosophical insights and geoscientific insights combine to geoethical tenets ({T_j}). Tellurian practices ({A_{j,k,i}}) emerge when a social group (V_k) applies geoethical tenets ({T_j}) to a given telluric attribute of the planetary habitat, i.e., a geoscientific issue (G_i). The regular problem of geoethics is posed: given ({T_j}) and (V_k) tellurian practices ({A_{j,k,i}}) are deduced for handling (G_i). These practices are means–end complexes specified by an axiology underpinning the philosophical insights, for example, human flourishing (knowledge, welfare, liberty, solidarity, justice). However, conflicts arise in plural societies because groups (W_m) may not accept the geoethical framing ({T_j}) and therefore enact practices ({B_{j,m,i}}) for (G_i). Subsequently, the inverse problem of geoethics is posed: given a desired practice ({A_{j,k,i}}) for a specific geoscientific issue (G_i), which geoethical framing would different cultural milieus be willing to embrace?
To operationalise insights into the inverse problem of geoethics, a typology of symbolic cultural universes, i.e. milieus, is used. These milieus differ in how they interpret "what the world is" and "what ought to be done". Subsequently, these milieus also vary in the uptake of geoethics (high, moderate, partial, or low) and the ways they deal with it (rules, trusted brokers, inclusion mechanisms, or defensive closure). How to tackle 'managed retreat' in response to the predicted rise of global mean sea level illustrates how the inverse problem of geoethics becomes practically urgent [3]. Its systemic relevance arises from understanding the planetary habitat as a single, integrated Earth System [4], which establishes that worldviews, cultures, philosophies, and ethics themselves must be treated as endogenous system attributes. Hence, variants of geoethics designed for cultural milieus are urgently needed to drive just and effective tellurian practices.
- Peppoloni S, Di Capua G (2021) Current Definition and Vision of Geoethics. In: Geo-societal Narratives. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 17–28
- Potthast T (2024) Epistemic-Moral Hybrids as a Heuristic for Normative Epistemology in Practice. In: Flemmer R, Gill B, Kosgei J (eds) Proximity as Method. Routledge India, London, pp 68–77
- Bohle M, Marone E (2022) Phronesis at the Human-Earth Nexus: Managed Retreat. Front Polit Sci 4:1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2022.819930
- Nightingale AJ, Eriksen S, Taylor M, et al (2020). Beyond Technical Fixes: climate solutions and the great derangement. Clim Dev 12:343–352. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2019.1624495
How to cite: Bohle, M.: Designing Geoethics for Cultural Milieus: The Inverse Problem, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-1463, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-1463, 2026.
Despite the surge in enthusiasm for regenerative agriculture as a guiding concept, there has been very little conceptual or philosophical literature on the criteria for regenerative agriculture or its underlying rationale. Here, I provide a context-setting discussion of collected works on regenerative agriculture, noting their emphasis on specific agricultural practices rather than theoretical specification or defense of the concept. I then propose an approach that blends an ecological account of renewable elements in agricultural systems into a comprehensive ethics for evaluating alternative configurations of production. Conceptualized in this way, regenerative agriculture offers a framework that integrates two different disciplines—agricultural science and environmental ethics—leading us to a deeper understanding of the challenges and solutions towards more sustainable agriculture. This talk builds on two recent publications in npj Sustainable Agriculture (Congreves 2025a, 2025b) and examines the concept, definition, and philosophy.
How to cite: Congreves, K.: Regenerative agriculture: searching for meaning via definition and philosophy, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-5948, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-5948, 2026.
Humans have spread out of Africa into all continents, except Antarctica. Food availability and adaptability to diverse food were drivers for this expansion impacted by geological and climate processes. Humans themselves also shaped landscapes and biodiversity by eradicating many bigger species (Frankopan 2023). The industrial revolution with massive deployment of fossil energy replacing muscle power of humans and domesticated animals increased CO2 and methane emissions. The ‘great acceleration’ after WWII led to the well-known ‘hockey stick’ effect (Steffen et al. 2015). The massive upscaling through industrialisation transformed food production, distribution and consumption. The trend towards standardisation and spatial expansion of industrial agriculture generated increasingly highly processed food. Energy demand per unit output increased on land with reliance on artificial fertilizers, factory farming and intensive pest and disease control. Its pollution of surface, ground and coastal waters, industrial agriculture has contributed to breaching planetary boundaries.
A similar pattern has arisen in marine food production. While the ocean is one huge interconnected ecosystem, local and regional temperature, salinity and habitats create distinct floral and faunal niches. The scaling up of industrial fishing has, similar to earlier trends on land, significantly changed the faunal size distribution. Top predators that maintain marine food webs have declined, e.g. in the North Atlantic to less than 10% of their biomass a century ago (Christensen et al. 2003). Excessive, unselective extractions create waste and shrink global landings serving as nutritious food. Conversely, improved utilisation and management can increase nutritional effects. Here it is argued that phasing out unselective and particularly destructive forms of fishing and replacing them with local, low impact fisheries would climate proof marine harvesting and enhance justice by benefit sharing (Nauen et al. 2025). The appropriate harvesting scale uses basic principles: let juvenile fish grow to maturity; avoid fishing large, old females with the highest reproductive capacity; fish prey less than predators; harvest only what can regrow, shored up by strongly enforced protected areas. Such technical measures should be underpinned by inclusive management practices that are gender aware and value ecological knowledge of small-scale fishers and science. In many coastal areas scaling down or sideways towards local, low-impact, small-scale fisheries offers more cost-effective and environmentally benign, high quality nutrition and other social benefits. Increased ocean literacy combined with attention to social justice are major enabling factors for steering transitions towards viable regenerative food production systems.
References
Christensen, V. et al. (2003). Hundred-year decline of North Atlantic predatory fishes. Fish Fisheries, 4(1), 1-24 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1467-2979.2003.00103.x
Francopan, P. (2023). The Earth Transformed. An Untold History. London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi, Sydney, Bloomsbury Publishing, 696 p. ISBN 978-1-5266-2255-5
Nauen, C.E. et al. (2025). Voices from the shorelines to navigate the anthropocene. Ch. 9 in M. Bohle and C.E. Nauen (eds.). Cross-Disciplinary Dialogues with the Earth Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-97445-8_9
Steffen, W. et al. (2015). The trajectory of the Anthropocene. The great acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, 2, 81-98. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019614564785
How to cite: Nauen, C. E.: Scale matters, but not always by scaling up, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-14505, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-14505, 2026.
As Earth system science (ESS) institutions navigate the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in research and teaching, preparing the current and future workforce for AI/ML adoption has largely focused on developing technical skills for scientific applications. Many students, postdocs, and scientific staff are learning to use AI tools faster than they are learning to reflect on their implications. The ethical, societal, and educational dimensions of AI use remain comparatively underdeveloped, with important consequences for scientific integrity, public trust, and the long-term sustainability of research practices. If AI is to strengthen ESS research, we need to support researchers at all career stages, not only in how to use these tools, but in how to use them responsibly. This includes ethical decision-making, responsible data practices, transparency in publishing, and awareness of the environmental and societal impacts of increasing computing needs. This presentation describes a structured workforce development approach at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) that aims to embed responsible AI education across the ESS research lifecycle, with specific attention to the needs of students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career staff. The framework is built around three interconnected priorities. The first emphasizes foundational skill-building in ethical literacy, critical evaluation of AI outputs, bias awareness, and responsible data and publication practices. The second focuses on strengthening scientific reliability through training in reproducibility, uncertainty awareness, interpretability, and sustainable computing practices. The third addresses governance and ethical dissemination, establishing institutional structures that support transparency, accountability, and responsible use. We will share examples from NSF NCAR of how ethics are addressed in our training programs. Together, these efforts show how responsible AI education can be integrated into everyday research practice and support an ESS workforce that applies AI with rigor, responsibility, and societal awareness.
How to cite: Haacker, R., Hauser, T., Morrison, M., and Cains, M.: Building an Ethical and Responsible Workforce: An AI/ML Training Strategy for Earth System Science, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-14156, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-14156, 2026.
Research shows that community-based propagation is the most effective strategy for scaling innovations in sustainability education in formal settings like universities. It builds a community of “ambassadors” who share the innovation with their social networks, for whom they serve as trusted messengers. A backbone organization facilitates and elevates ambassadors’ work, spurring interest in joining the community and thereby creating a reinforcing feedback loop that spreads the innovation.
Systems analysis shows that community-based propagation can generate exponential scaling of adoption when word-of-mouth diffusion and direct outreach have little impact. Like educational innovations, efforts to scale climate action via word-of-mouth and direct outreach often fail, even if those actions carry economic and health benefits.
Here, we share initial findings from an ongoing community-based propagation effort to accelerate participation in residential decarbonization among an immigrant community in the US. Working in partnership with a local civil society organization (CSO), we built a program that supports community members who learn about energy efficiency and decarbonization incentives, participate in them, and share their experiences with their own social networks in culturally and in the community’s primary language (here, Khmer). Ambassadors’ work is celebrated by their peers and the CSO, creating a reinforcing feedback loop that amplifies their efforts as more community members become interested in the ambassador program and its work.
We are currently assessing how this approach can be replicated and scaled to other communities and contexts. This largely bottom-up strategy builds trust and participation in climate solutions, which is critically important in a democracy. Perhaps equally importantly, it also strengthens social fabric and civic engagement, which, in turn, strengthen democracy.
How to cite: Rooney-Varga, J., Cheney, L., Sam, T., and Chiemruom, S.: Community-based propagation: Systems science insights for rapid scaling of climate action and cooperation, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-22232, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-22232, 2026.
Climate change education has made substantial progress in understanding how to foster students’ scientific understanding and individual pro-environmental engagement (Aeschbach et al., 2025; Wildbichler et al., 2025). At the same time, recent research points to a persistent tendency to frame climate action only as an individual responsibility, while collective, strategic, and political dimensions of agency remain underrepresented in formal education (Kranz et al., 2022). This narrow perspective risks depoliticising climate education and limiting students’ understanding of how individual and collective forms of action interact within democratic societies. The Erasmus+-Project TRACE (Transformative Agency in Climate Education) addresses this challenge by developing and empirically investigating an educational design that explicitly integrates individual and collective as well as strategic and political dimensions of climate action. Rather than positioning these forms of agency as competing or hierarchical, TRACE conceptualises them as complementary and mutually reinforcing components of climate action (Otto et al., 2020).
In the project, we develop a digital self-reflection tool that supports students’ metacognitive reflection on different climate mitigation and adaptation strategies, including individual, collective, strategic, and political actions. The tool is not intended to prescribe “better” forms of action, but to make students’ assumptions, uncertainties, stances, attitudes and knowledge gaps explicit and open to discussion. Building on these reflections, TRACE implements a modular student lab in which learners engage with climate science, emissions pathways, and decision-making processes through specifically designed activities. Particular emphasis is placed on connecting personal engagement with collective processes, such as policy-making, institutional change, and democratic participation. The project further investigates how such learning environments can be transferred into everyday school teaching through teacher professional development and open educational resources. By addressing the de-politicisation of climate education while avoiding simplistic dichotomies between individual and collective responsibility, TRACE aims to contribute to empirically grounded design principles for climate education that support informed, reflective, and democratically embedded climate agency.
The contribution presents the overall design and research logic of TRACE, including its theoretical grounding, methodology, and cross-national implementation. Particular emphasis is placed on the self-reflection tool, which is discussed in detail with regard to its conceptual framework, design features, and role within the broader learning environment.
How to cite: Schubatzky, T., Wildbichler, S., Fasching, M., Kranz, J., and Tasquier, G.: Transformative Agency in Climate Education (TRACE): A Project Linking Climate Literacy, Individual and Collective Action, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-5020, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-5020, 2026.
Sedimentologika (e-ISSN 2813-415X) is the community-driven, Diamond Open Access scientific journal dedicated to advancing the field of sedimentology. As a Diamond Open Access journal, the content is freely available to read and share, and the journal is free to publish in.
Sedimentologika is an international, broad-scope journal that publishes high-quality scientific research on sedimentology, stratigraphy, and related fields. The journal accepts research with widely applicable advances in sedimentology, as well as regional case studies of interest to the sedimentology community, regardless of spatial and temporal scales, on Earth or any other planetary body. It also encourages interdisciplinary studies that link sedimentology to geochemistry, palaeontology, microbiology, archaeology, geomorphology, meteorology, hydrology, paleoclimate, tectonics (amongst others), and transdisciplinary studies that encompass sedimentology in society, education, and technology. Finally, Sedimentologika also aims to foster an inclusive and diverse environment within sedimentology, stratigraphy, and related fields (Thomas et al., 2023).
Since its opening in fall 2022, it has published 4 issues and is growing slowly in the sedimentary sciences field. Its growth compares with other newly created and scholarly-led Diamond open access journals, reflecting a community that relies on society journals operating under hybrid or gold open access managed by large for profit publishing companies. While the growth is satisfactory in such environments, it relies on the increasing contribution of researchers, in a system where not all country value the inputs of scholarly-led ventures without impact factor, and where scientific publishing is seen more and more as a service, and less as a joint effort to strenghten a scientific field. In this way, reconsidering editorial, reviewing and copyediting contributions as part of an added value for a scholar career is essential and necessary if fairer modes of publications are to be achieved in a near future.
Thomas, C., Privat, A., Vaucher, R., Spychala, Y., Zuchuat, V., Marchegiano, M., Poyatos-Moré, M., Kane, I., & Chiarella, D. 2023: Sedimentologika : A community-driven diamond open access journal in sedimentology. Sedimentologika, 1.
How to cite: Thomas, C., Vaucher, R., Arrieta-Martinez, M.-C., Chiarella, D., Englert, R., Lloyd, J., Hême de Lacotte, V., Marchegiano, M., Privat, A., and Sabir, F.: Sedimentologika 3 years after the opening : reflecting on diamond open access and scholarly-led ventures in scientific publishing , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-17509, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-17509, 2026.
At a time when climate complexities, exposure to concomitant natural hazards, accruing physical vulnerabilities across the natural and built environments, and a whirlwind evolution of energy sources all pierce through layered societal fragilities and fraught global equilibria, identifying shared interests can appear a Herculean exercise. This is underscored by unexpected geopolitical tensions and strategic conundrums, bridging human safety and security and raising major questions about the present and future of the Earth system. Social and political polarisations, wavering international policies, and ageing demographics are not helpful.
Also, not only can the circuitous evolutions across the availability and location of natural resources, for today and tomorrow, appear both too “fast” and too “slow” (to either global citizens and/or involved stakeholders), but they reveal the inherent fragility of equilibria once socially assumed to be long-standing or “reliable”. The reality of the 21st century brings an indisputably more kaleidoscopic palette, concealing rising economic and social costs. As always throughout human history, many of these involve fundamental social commons, including seemingly far away or very near ones, like freshwater or critical minerals, whose search for and exploitation evoke vital resources and hidden hazards, often resulting in socio-economic complexities or tensions.
While acknowledging that novel mindsets are needed – now – to advance societies and protect human life, knowledge and cross-disciplinary insight can and should be strategic means to help design peaceful, fruitful prospects that lead to concrete cooperation, locally and beyond. Helping to build a socially aware approach to address the contrasts that energy, climate, and boundaries strain can be challenging but enriching, puzzling but revealing, and disconcerting but illuminating. Above all, contemporary crises at the nexus between climate and resources are multiple, exposing systemic fragilities and delicate, shifting boundaries across risks and resources.
How to cite: Fracassi, U.: Buy Hard: Climate, Hazards, and Natural Resources across Geopolitical fault lines, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-20237, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-20237, 2026.
Military conflicts and wars can trigger landscape fires that cover large territories, leading to significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere and reducing the carbon sequestration capacity of the burned forests. Assessing the scale of this negative impact using ground-based methods is impossible due to contamination by Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) and landmines, the constant shelling, damage to monitoring systems, power outages, and a shortage of personnel. To spatially quantify the impact of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War on landscape fires, GHG emissions, and reductions in the carbon sequestration capacity of forests, we utilized remotely sensed data from 2022 to 2025 in combination with geoscientific approaches.
First, we identified the fire perimeters using satellite monitoring data and expert estimation. We then classified the burned areas into different land cover types: coniferous forests (Scots pine and spruce) and deciduous forests (common oak, beech, hornbeam, other hardwoods, and softwoods), croplands (wheat, barley, sunflower, and corn), and other landscapes (pastures, shrub vegetation, wetlands, and water vegetation). Using Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) for each land cover type summarizing by calendar seasons, we estimated the attribution factor spatially, which identifies the share of landscape fires that were war-related and not caused by natural factors or human activities typical of peacetime. The assumption was that under the no-war scenario, the same weather conditions (FWI) on the same type of land cover and in the same season should cause commensurate areas of fire across Ukraine.
To calculate the biomass losses due to war-related fires, we considered the land cover type, the species and age structure of the forest stands, the distribution of fires according to their intensity based on the differenced normalized burn ratio, their landscape-damaging severity, and the biomass content. On this basis, we estimated the immediate GHG emissions from war-related landscape fires as well as the longer-term biomass losses due to current forest fires and their corresponding GHG emissions.
Finally, we estimated the loss of carbon sequestration capacity in the burned forests and the associated uncertainty in the results achieved. Our study has demonstrated that during the first 3 years (2022–2024) of the Russo–Ukrainian War, the GHG emissions from war-related landscape fires, including forest, cropland, grassland, and wetland fires, have been substantial, and their spatial pattern has been significantly impacted by the location and intensity of the hostilities. The corresponding GHG emissions in the immediate term were estimated to be 14.18 Mt carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), and in the future (long-term), the biomass losses due to current forest fires and their corresponding GHG emissions were calculated to be 32.37 Mt CO2e.
How to cite: Zibtsev, S., Vasylyshyn, R., Bun, R., de Klerk, L., Soshenskyi, O., Krakovska, S., See, L., Shlapak, M., Blyshchyk, V., Kryshtop, L., Romanchuk, Z., Yashchun, O., Kalchuk, E., Rymarenko, Y., and Zibtseva, I.: Spatial quantification of the impact of the Russo–Ukrainian War on landscape fires and greenhouse gas emissions (2022-2025), EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-11674, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-11674, 2026.
Climate change is increasingly affecting nature and people everywhere. Despite the growing scientific evidence on climate effects, a significant gap persists between the produced scientific knowledge and public understanding. High schools act as critical hubs for climate action by increasing environmental literacy and fostering green skills. In the educational frame, it has been perceived that many teachers lack the tools and resources to confidently address and teach about climate change, its impacts, and adaptation. This study introduces a novel guide designed specifically to train teachers of students aged 12 to 18 on the impacts of climate change and effective adaptation strategies. Structured in a progressive sequence, from basic concepts to adaptation actions, the ‘Handbook for Climate Change Adaptation Strategies’ was developed under the CLARKS, ERASMUS+ project, through a co-creation process. Teachers’ feedback was incorporated to identify specific knowledge gaps and align the content with teaching needs, ensuring that it is understandable for teachers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds. During discussions teachers emphasized the need for the identification of climate change effects in everyday life and the distinction between mitigation and adaptation actions. The handbook was created based on the latest IPCC findings, as well as the European Climate Risk Assessment and other international reports. It focuses on the definition of climate change and how climate-related risks arise from the interplay between climate hazards, vulnerability, exposure, and adaptive capacity.
A target area refers to a system that is affected by climate change and is interconnected with other systems. In this handbook five overarching target areas were considered: ecosystems, food and water, human health, infrastructure, and socio-economics. The handbook describes how each system has been affected by climate hazards and presents proposed lines of adaptation for each target area to address ongoing and expected climate change impacts. These lines of adaptation are based on the national adaptation plans from Finland, Spain and Portugal (ERASMUS+ project partners), as well as on the European Union’s international strategies for climate change adaptation. By integrating scientific knowledge with practical educational guidance, this work contributes to strengthening climate change adaptation literacy across generations and supports the implementation of informed adaptation measures.
How to cite: Madiedo Camelo, A., Matias, A., Carrasco, A. R., and Ferreira, Ó.: Bridging science and education: The Handbook for Climate Change Adaptation Strategies, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-11682, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-11682, 2026.
Policy design in climate and sustainability is hindered by nonlinear feedbacks, long delays, and uncertainty that limit the effectiveness of traditional information‑centric communication. The manuscript examines how simulation models can be designed and deployed to support learning and decision‑making by integrating analytical rigor, model transparency, and structured stakeholder engagement. Using the C‑ROADS and En‑ROADS climate policy simulators and insights from the MIT Climate Pathways Project (CPP), the paper distills three design principles for impactful simulation‑based learning environments:
- (1) rigorous, empirically grounded modeling with comprehensive simulator transparency;
- (2) user‑centered interface design that scaffolds discovery while preserving access to underlying structure and assumptions; and
- (3) facilitated, interactive engagements that enable participants to test mental models through experimentation and social learning.
First, rigorous modeling emphasizes the necessity of formal testing and documentation to build confidence in policy insights. En‑ROADS and C‑ROADS are developed iteratively, grounded in the scientific literature, are calibrated to historic data, and their future behavior is tested against the climate scenarios in the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and other widely-used Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), GCAM, MESSAGE-GLOBIUM, and REMIND-MAgPIE. Multi‑layered documentation—including an online technical reference guide, simulator behavior comparisons, and easily accessible explanations—enables scrutiny of model mechanisms, parameters, and simulator behavior. Users can interrogate and vary assumptions to explore robustness and uncertainty.
Second, user-centered interface design concerns design for “guided discovery.” The simulator’s layered interface presents key outcomes and policy levers in an intuitive top layer while offering advanced controls (≈250 parameters) and extensive visualization (≈180 graphs). Real‑time, browser‑based computation supports rapid scenario exploration across devices and languages, enabling both individual and group use cases. Iterative usability testing ensures that the interface reduces cognitive load while preserving analytical depth.
Third, facilitated, interactive engagements include the design of engagement protocols that combine analytic reasoning with experiential, collaborative learning. We highlight three formats:
- the World Climate Simulation with C‑ROADS;
- the Climate Action Simulation with En‑ROADS; and
- the En‑ROADS Climate Workshop for policy briefings.
These interactive engagements prompt participants to articulate expectations before running scenarios, confront divergences between expectations and simulated outcomes, and engage in structured discussion and reflection. Such practices surface misconceptions about leverage points (e.g., relative effects of pricing emissions, efficiency improvements, carbon dioxide removal, afforestation, or bioenergy), foster systems thinking, and support informed action.
The CPP and the broader community infrastructure amplify reach and consistency. As of December 2025, more than 472,000 participants in 183 countries—including over 23,000 leaders in government, business, and civil society—have engaged with the simulators. A global network of En‑ROADS Climate Ambassadors (over 940 in 90+ countries) has collectively engaged upwards of 354,000 people through a structured training and certification program, extending the implementation of the design principles in diverse contexts.
The paper concludes with a conceptual model for future empirical research that hypothesizes how model rigor and transparency and interface usability affect learning and action via the mediating mechanism of facilitated, interactive simulation‑based experience. This framework supports systematic evaluation of simulator design and engagement quality, informing the development of SD‑based tools and protocols that can strengthen climate literacy, improve policy reasoning, and support evidence‑based action.
How to cite: Kapmeier, F., Jones, A., and Sterman, J.: Designing for impact: How interactive climate simulations foster learning, engagement and action, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-22677, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-22677, 2026.
Geoethics is an epistemic-normative practice that dynamically integrates geoscientific knowledge with ethical reasoning to guide tellurian entanglements of people and Earth. It highlights agency, virtue, responsibility, and knowledge as core tenets1. When geoethical thought is extended to public issues, it supports civic participation while maintaining its foundation in Earth System Science2,3.
Analysing geoethics through the prism of systemism, scientific realism, praxeology (means–end analysis), and agathonism (human flourishing), this study explores mutual conceptual alignments of geoethical practice and Mario Bunge’s philosophical program4,5:
- Systemism holds that every entity is part of a system, composed of components, relations, and mechanisms across levels, including non-mechanical ones such as algorithms or LLMs.
- Scientific realism & fallibilism: truth is objective but partial; knowledge grows by conjecture, test and error correction.
- Praxeology (means–end): responsible action pursues value-guided ends using empirically supported means, with consequences assessed—including long-term effects—and endorses equality, liberty, democracy, solidarity, justice, and competence for institutions.
- Axiology—Agathonism: ethics aims to promote human flourishing (health, knowledge, solidarity, justice, freedom), rejecting radical moral relativism while allowing contextual trade-offs. Bunge, drawing in part on Max Weber, rejected the idea of an absolute moral code and developed a humanist ethics that evaluates actions by their consequences, integrating commitments to truth and human well-being. His central maxim—“Enjoy life and help others live”—unites personal and collective flourishing.
Initially, systemism reframes agency as capabilities embedded in multi-level socio-ecological systems, requiring explicit description of components, relations, and feedback across scales. Realism and praxeology upgrade virtue and responsibility from personal dispositions to rule-governed routines, such as open data, code and access, registration of interests and affiliations, independent replication, reviews, and audits. Finally, agathonism specifies non-relativist ends (knowledge, welfare, liberty, solidarity, justice) and converts universal rights into side-constraints and metrics for practical trade-offs.
A proposed alignment checklist follows:
-System model (Are components, relations, and cross-scale mechanisms explicit?),
Ends–means coherence (Do chosen means have evidence for and safety given uncertainties?),
-Value vector (How are welfare, knowledge, freedom, solidarity, and justice advanced or constrained?),
-Evidence protocol (What are the reproducibility and transparency provisions (data, methods, replication funding)?),
-Participation efficacy (What binding levers do non-expert stakeholders possess, and how is impact measured?),
-Responsibility pathway (Who is answerable for unintended effects, and what are remediation triggers and funds?).
Overall, the proposed conceptual alignment moves geoethical practice from laudable aspirations to evidence-led, publicly justifiable, and purpose-oriented designable mechanisms that support human flourishing within planetary boundaries.
1Di Capua, G., Peppoloni, S., Bobrowsky, P. (2017). The Cape Town Statement on Geoethics. Annals of Geophysics, 60(0), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.4401/ag-7553.
2Bohle, M., & Marone, E. (2022). Phronesis at the Human-Earth Nexus: Managed Retreat. Frontiers in Political Science, 4(February), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2022.819930.
3Marone, E. & Marone, L. (2025). Enlightening the Anthropocene through Supradisciplinary Science and Education. In Dialogues with the Earth Sciences. Bohle M. & Nauen C. eds. Springer International Publishing 978-3-031-97445-8(ISBN).
4Bunge, M. A. (2001). Philosophy in Crisis: The Need for Reconstruction. Prometheus Books.
5Bunge, M. A. (2006). Chasing Reality (Toronto St). University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442672857.
How to cite: Marone, E., Marone, L., and Bohle, M.: A Systemist’s and Agathonist’s Take on Geoethics, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-1607, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-1607, 2026.
Posters virtual: Fri, 8 May, 14:00–18:00 | vPoster spot 5
EGU26-7904 | ECS | Posters virtual | VPS1
The United States' critical minerals security policies in the context of neomercantilism and their impact on global geological studiesFri, 08 May, 14:09–14:12 (CEST) vPoster spot 5
In the field of science, there is a need for a more comprehensive assessment of the potential geopolitical impacts of the transition to renewable energy. The combination of risk-prone situations such as depleting mineral resources, increasing environmental problems, rising geopolitical risks, and regional and global conflict potentials with the energy transition’s intense demand for critical minerals has made uninterrupted access to critical minerals a highly sensitive issue for the countries’ national security. The importance of these minerals, which are also heavily used in sophisticated weapon systems and ammunition, is increasing day by day. Recent events such as trade disputes between countries, resource nationalism, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine War, US President Trump’s demand to “annex” Greenland and Canada for critical minerals deposits, the US-Ukraine Minerals Deal that ensures the control of US on the critical minerals deposits of Ukraine, and the US-China trade war depending on REE’s and critical minerals have made the risk of disruption to the global economy and security even more apparent. This situation has placed critical minerals in a sensitive position in the global political economy, necessitating a reassessment of the mutual economic and political relations between the major global economies of the 21st century and resource-rich developing countries. In this process, developed countries need to enter into a new economic structure with resource-rich countries in order to maintain their prosperity and national security. The ideological divisions of the Cold War era are giving way to new alliances based on economic and technological superiority. On the other hand, due to the vital importance of critical minerals, especially for leading economic and military powers such as the US, EU, China, Russia, Japan, and India, any disruptions these countries may experience in the access of critical minerals or mutual interventions between parties in resource-rich countries carry the risk of large-scale conflict worldwide.
Protectionist, control-oriented, import-substitutionist, and divisive policies are those that most countries have implemented or have been forced to contend with regarding “critical minerals.” This situation, which has led to a resurgence of resource nationalism worldwide, also signals the beginning of a new “mercantilist” era from a global perspective. These policies, reflect the fundamental characteristics of neo-mercantilism, have formed the main axis of many countries’ “critical minerals” strategies, especially since 2016. Moreover, the United States, one of the most important advocates of economic liberalism, is leading this new era globally. The US’s national interests are driving the country to pursue neomercantilist strategies regarding critical minerals. These strategies leave other countries with no choice but to either align with the policies they contain or respond to the US with similar counter-policies. In today’s climate of international insecurity, the implementation of neo-mercantilist policies on critical minerals is becoming a necessity rather than a choice for countries. Developments in the coming period will determine whether critical minerals will be a vital aid for the clean energy transition or a bottleneck for world politics and economics due to access risks. Geologists and policymakers will need to work together on this issue.
How to cite: Tuna, İ. K.: The United States' critical minerals security policies in the context of neomercantilism and their impact on global geological studies, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-7904, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-7904, 2026.
EGU26-1853 | Posters virtual | VPS1
Measuring Geoethical Awareness and Engagement Profiles in UNESCO Global Geoparks: A Validated Scale and Evidence from GreeceFri, 08 May, 14:12–14:15 (CEST) vPoster spot 5
Geoethics provides a critical framework for understanding and guiding responsible human–Earth interactions, particularly within UNESCO Global Geoparks (UGGps), which function as living laboratories for geoconservation, geoeducation, and sustainable regional development. Despite growing recognition of geoethics within the geosciences, validated and standardized tools for assessing geoethical awareness—and for understanding how societal engagement with geoheritage varies across socioecological contexts—remain limited. This study addresses this gap by integrating the development, validation, and application of a Geoethical Awareness Scale (GAS) with a comprehensive mapping of residents’ geoethical perceptions and engagement profiles across nine Hellenic UGGps (Lesvos Island, Psiloritis, Chelmos–Vouraikos, Vikos–Aoos, Sitia, Grevena–Kozani, Kefalonia–Ithaca, Lavreotiki, and Meteora–Pyli).
Using an online questionnaire administered to 798 residents, we developed and psychometrically validated a 32-item GAS structured across 16 thematic axes. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified six robust dimensions of geoethical awareness: (1) geological heritage conservation and sustainable georesource use, (2) community engagement and collaborative governance, (3) sustainability through geoenvironmental education, (4) environmental challenges and risk adaptation, (5) sustainable geotourism, and (6) climate awareness and ecosystem resilience. These factors explained 60.12% of the total variance, with reliability indices ranging from acceptable to excellent. Structural equation modeling confirmed the internal validity and generalizability of the scale, establishing GAS as a reliable tool for assessing geoethical awareness in designated, protected, and managed socioecological systems.
Beyond scale validation, spatial and comparative analyses revealed generally high levels of geoethical awareness across Hellenic UGGps, alongside significant regional variability linked to local context, management visibility, and outreach practices. Sitia UGGp consistently exhibited the highest awareness levels, whereas Psiloritis and Lavreotiki UGGps showed lower scores in dimensions related to community engagement and sustainable geotourism, highlighting opportunities for targeted governance and educational interventions. Demographic and experiential factors—particularly age, education level, urban origin, prior visits to UGGps, and membership in environmental organizations—significantly influenced geoethical perceptions, underscoring the importance of experiential learning and direct engagement.
Cluster analysis further identified four distinct resident profiles: (1) highly engaged environmental stewards, (2) supportive but selective advocates, (3) moderately indifferent participants, and (4) disengaged or critical respondents. While nearly 70% of participants demonstrated strong or moderate alignment with geoethical principles and values, the remaining groups highlight the need for tailored education, participatory governance, and inclusive outreach strategies.
Overall, this integrated assessment demonstrates how validated measurement, spatial differentiation, and social profiling of geoethical awareness can inform adaptive governance and geoeducation strategies within UGGps. The findings support a transition from anthropocentric toward geocentric perspectives, positioning geoethical awareness as a key socioecological indicator for sustainability, resilience, and Earth-system stewardship in the Anthropocene.
How to cite: Koupatsiaris, A. A. and Drinia, H.: Measuring Geoethical Awareness and Engagement Profiles in UNESCO Global Geoparks: A Validated Scale and Evidence from Greece, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-1853, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-1853, 2026.
EGU26-1432 | Posters virtual | VPS1
The Anthropocene as Earth’s natural to unnatural history transitionFri, 08 May, 14:15–14:18 (CEST) vPoster spot 5
The evolution of life on Earth has been bracketed by two momentous events. The first was enabling: the rise in atmospheric oxygen from photosynthetic cyanobacteria during the early Proterozoic. The second was disrupting: the alteration of all subsystems comprising the Earth System by Homo sapiens beginning in the Late Pleistocene and intensifying through the Holocene. Using this lens, the Anthropocene that has morphed this century from a term to a concept to a keyword to a zeitgeist is a profound, albeit in many ways inadvertent, outcome of the transformed pure-to-applied geology profession. It instructively highlights the natural to unnatural transition of Earth history with the human-modified upper part of the lithosphere as the archaeosphere which straddles the Geological and Archaeological Timescales. In Earth System terms, it informs a new ethos to challenge the estrangement from nature by most non-indigenous peoples and the blinkered approach to climate change deliberations by most policymakers.
In contrast to the Anthropocene Event approach by a diverse group who considered all of humanity’s Earth-surface-altering impacts, the stratigraphically focused Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) proposed a post-Holocene epoch/series with a 1952 GSSP centered on the mid-20th-century Great Acceleration and peak of atomic bomb testing fallout. Starting its advocacy in 2015 in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was created at the urging of Albert Einstein and Manhattan Project researchers to reflect on the catastrophic weaponry used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was a questionable anomaly in Geological Timescale practice. Rejected in 2024 by the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, International Commission on Stratigraphy and International Union of Geological Sciences, the AWG’s proposal also ignored several relevant breakthroughs in the human psyche. These included the Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on Planetary Health in 2015 and the UN’s Transforming our World agenda from 2015-2030.
Today, the sciences and humanities would be wise to integrate the prescient realizations of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) that nature would exist in the absence of humanity but that humanity cannot exist without nature and of James Lovelock (1919-2022) that there is no prescription for living with Gaia, only consequences. Arguably, today’s biggest dividend of Anthropocene thinking is that it provides a holistic foundation for urgent Earth System governance.
How to cite: Koster, E., Gibbard, P., and Gibling, M.: The Anthropocene as Earth’s natural to unnatural history transition, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-1432, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-1432, 2026.
