2025-11-27 インペリアル・カレッジ・ロンドン（ICL）
＜関連情報＞
- https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/articles/medicine/school-public-health/2025/plastic-pollution-is-worsened-by-warming-climate-and-must-be-stemmed-researchers-warn/
- https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/science/articles/10.3389/fsci.2025.1636665/full
気候変動の影響下におけるプラスチック汚染：陸上および水生生態系における存在量、分布、および危険性への影響 Plastic pollution under the influence of climate change: implications for the abundance, distribution, and hazards in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems
Frank J. Kelly,Stephanie L. Wright,Guy Woodward,Julia C. Fussell
Frontiers in Science Published:27 November 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3389/fsci.2025.1636665
Abstract
Of the numerous anthropogenic pressures that are being exerted on ecosystems globally, plastic pollution and climate change are potentially the most pressing. This is particularly true when they co-occur as joint stressors. These are interlinked with respect to their root cause (the overconsumption of finite resources) and their effects in natural and anthropogenic systems and processes. This review focuses on a growing area of research into how climate change can, by transforming plastic pollution from a reversible to a poorly reversible contaminant, exacerbate the abundance, distribution, exposure, and impacts of plastics and associated chemicals in our waters, soils, biota, and atmosphere. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that climate change and plastic pollution can have significant and often interactive ecological effects, particularly among the higher trophic levels within the food web. The rational response to confront these effects is to address the pollution at source by rapidly and meaningfully reducing emissions into the environment. We discuss challenges but also solutions, through future research, policies and public awareness, that must harness the same enthusiasm that made plastic a fundamental cornerstone of the modern world in the first place. The threat that plastics produced, used and discarded today could cause global-scale impacts in the future is compelling motivation to take appropriate action now.
Key points
- Ample evidence now exists that climate change conditions are contributing to the abundance, distribution, exposure, and impacts of plastic in the environment.
- Investigations into the ecotoxicity of plastic pollution under climate change are still in their infancy, but studies have already demonstrated interactive effects on terrestrial, freshwater and marine biota and ecosystems, suggesting that these become stronger at higher trophic levels.
- While large, long-lived aquatic organisms high in the food chain may be among the most vulnerable species to intensifying plastic pollution under climate change, thereby representing promising bioindicators of the impacts of both stressors, species lower in the food web appear much less sensitive to both stressors and many even exhibit positive responses.
- Impacts of climate–plastic interactions within terrestrial ecosystems are typically more complex and harder to predict than those in aquatic ecosystems, with evidence ranging from antagonistic to additive and synergistic effects.
- The integration of micro- and nanoplastic pollution with climate stressors offers a way to steer, coordinate and prioritize research and monitoring, along with policy and action.
