When Dr Philippe Ciais publishes a paper, the world listens—over 864,000 times, to be exact. As a leading scientist at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), his work is part of a vast scientific engine that has propelled CNRS to the top of Carbon Brief’s Cosmos 500 ranking, the most comprehensive assessment of global climate research output to date. With a publication count of 864,154, CNRS outpaces every other institution in the world, a testament to France’s long-standing investment in multidisciplinary science. Founded in 1939, CNRS employs nearly 30,000 researchers across fields ranging from astrophysics to ecology, with climate expertise concentrated in institutes like the Climate and Environment Sciences Laboratory—ranked 40th on the list in its own right.
The ranking, drawn from Carbon Brief’s Cosmos database of over 40,000 institutions, measures research impact by counting how often scientists affiliated with an institution appear as authors in peer-reviewed climate studies. Using OpenAlex, an open-source academic catalog, the analysis reveals not just scientific excellence but deep global imbalances. Over a third of the top 500 institutions are based in the United States, including the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado at second place with 721,372 publications. NCAR, founded in 1960, operates world-class facilities like the Mesa Laboratory and the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, and counts more than 60 scientists among the most cited in climate science.
The University of Washington follows at third with 662,032 publications, powered by its Climate Impacts Group and atmospheric science department, while the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) claims fourth with 530,244. CAS, the largest research organization on Earth, hosts over 70,000 employees and 106 institutes, including the influential Institute of Atmospheric Physics. Columbia University rounds out the top five with 505,465 publications, much of it driven by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Yet for all its scientific rigor, the Cosmos 500 exposes a troubling gap: only 30 institutions in the ranking are from the Global South. Half of those are in China, leaving vast regions of Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia underrepresented despite facing some of the most severe climate impacts. This disparity isn’t just about equity—it risks skewing global climate solutions away from the communities that need them most.
Still, the ranking offers a beacon of progress. Institutions like CNRS and NCAR show what sustained public investment in science can achieve. As political headwinds—such as recent attacks on climate research in the US—threaten scientific independence, the data reminds us that knowledge remains a shared, global endeavor. The next breakthrough in climate resilience might come from Paris, Beijing, or Boulder—but with more inclusive support, it could just as easily come from Nairobi or Jakarta.