Every year, thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles about climate and energy are published, and of those thousands, there are those which capture the attention of journalists and bloggers, and get shared across the internet. In 2022, despite heavy competition from war, death and economics, climate change and energy still commanded quite a bit of attention.
Here are the top ten most referenced and shared climate studies of 2022, as determined by Altmetric, an organization that scores academic papers according to their online mentions.
The United Nations held its annual Climate Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt over the past few weeks, and while it wasn’t easy, in the end 200 countries signed on to a breakthrough agreement that addressed one of the most persistent sticking points: the disparity between the nations responsible for most of the pollution that is driving climate change, and those that have contributed the least emissions but are suffering some of the most extreme effects.
Should New York issue $4.2 billion in new bonds to pay for projects related to greenhouse gas emissions, flood risk, clean water, land conservation, and other climate-related matters? That is one of the things that New Yorkers were asked to decide in this year’s elections.
This year we’ve once again seen record-breaking temperatures, droughts, destructive storms and climate-related fatalities across the U.S. Increasingly, the belief that human industrial activity is driving extreme weather events is becoming more mainstream. And while Democratic voters are still the most motivated to vote based on climate concerns, every year they are joined by more independents and Republicans. In the upcoming midterm elections, half of registered voters have indicated that climate change anxiety will impact their vote for Congress, according to 
Last year, President Biden officially recognized the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, celebrating the cultures and contributions of Native Americans in the US. Formerly known as Columbus Day, the move toward celebrating Indigenous people and culture rather than European colonialism began when South Dakota began observing Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 1989.
At the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal Environmental Protection Agency did not have the authority to mandate emissions from power plants in West Virginia v. EPA. This decision has been widely seen as a blow to the country’s ability to meet its climate goals, which would also give other countries an excuse not to meet their own.