Harmful tipping points in the natural world pose some of the gravest threats faced by humanity. Their triggering will severely damage our planet’s life-support systems and threaten the stability of our societies.
In the Summary Report:
• Narrative summary
• Global tipping points infographic
• Key messages
• Key Recommendations
Executive summary
• Section 1
• Section 2
• Section 3
• Section 4
This report is for all those concerned with tackling escalating Earth system change and mobilising transformative social change to alter that trajectory, achieve sustainability and promote social justice.
In this section:
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Key Concepts
• Approach
• References
Considers Earth system tipping points. These are reviewed and assessed across the three major domains of the cryosphere, biosphere and circulation of the oceans and atmosphere. We then consider the interactions and potential cascades of Earth system tipping points, followed by an assessment of early warning signals for Earth system tipping points.
Considers tipping point impacts. First we look at the human impacts of Earth system tipping points, then the potential couplings to negative tipping points in human systems. Next we assess the potential for cascading and compounding systemic risk, before considering the potential for early warning of impact tipping points.
Considers how to govern Earth system tipping points and their associated risks. We look at governance of mitigation, prevention and stabilisation then we focus on governance of impacts, including adaptation, vulnerability and loss and damage. Finally, we assess the need for knowledge generation at the science-policy interface.
Focuses on positive tipping points in technology, the economy and society. It provides a framework for understanding and acting on positive tipping points. We highlight illustrative case studies across energy, food and transport and mobility systems, with a focus on demand-side solutions (which have previously received limited attention).
In this section, we lay out the current state of the scientific literature on the interaction processes between several tipping systems and some other nonlinear components of the Earth system. The summary is shown in Figures 1.5.1 and 1.5.3.
These systems are not isolated entities but interact across the entire globe (Figure 1.5.1). Not only do the interactions span global distances, but some tipping systems themselves can be of regional spatial scale (e.g. coral reefs or the GrIS), while others cover significant portions of the globe (e.g. the AMOC). Also, timescales differ vastly among the different climate tipping systems: some are considered fast tipping systems once the process has been initiated (in the order of years/decades to centuries, such as the Amazon rainforest and AMOC), while others are considered slow tipping systems (in the order of centuries to millennia, such as the GrIS). These different spatial and temporal scales of the individual tipping systems are therefore also important for their interactions and are mapped out in Figure 1.5.2 (Rocha et al., 2018; Kriegler et al., 2009). The respective processes of the interactions can be found in Figure 1.5.3, alongside an estimation of the interaction direction and, if available, an estimation of their strength.