3.2.3.5 Addressing other causes of tipping

While GHG emissions are the primary drivers of Earth system tipping processes, additional drivers need to be managed to avert the crossing of tipping points. For example, deforestation and land use intensification could trigger the tipping of the Amazon rainforest, while nutrient pollution and over-exploitation could lead to the rapid collapse of marine fisheries and habitats. While some of these drivers are tied to global activities (e.g. large-scale commercial fishing or deforestation in the Amazon, due in part to demand for food products in China, Europe and the US), the primary or most immediate locus of governance of some of these non-climatic drivers may be regional or national, closer to the immediate scale of the tipping system, rather than in international organisations. For example, despite global drivers of deforestation in the Amazon, the rate of deforestation depends critically on the actions of Brazil’s federal government (see Box 3.2.2), with relatively low deforestation during President Lula’s term replaced by increased deforestation during Bolsonaro’s presidency (Peres et al., 2023).

The prevention of ESTPs may thus call for national efforts and new regional entities to facilitate cooperation across relevant states and sub-national jurisdictions regarding the governance of specific secondary drivers of tipping processes. Such regional initiatives could coordinate and align prevention measures with cross-border effects, pool resources, share knowledge and technologies, and engage in mutual learning about the effectiveness of prevention measures. More generally, such a regional approach would foster preventive capacities at the scale of the tipping system (see Chapter 3.1 on regional governance).

Additionally, regional entities may be able to reduce the likelihood of unintended consequences — for example, the displacement of deforestation from one region in Brazil to another or from Brazil to another Amazonian country — by facilitating coordination and consultation. Further, to the extent that global action is needed to mitigate secondary drivers or to allocate resources to support regional prevention efforts, regional entities will need to be meaningfully embedded within broader governance arrangements (see Chapter 3.1 on polycentric governance).

In addition to public entities, including intergovernmental fora and councils, there are several non-governmental organisations and private-sector coalitions focused on specific sectors or resources – such as the Marine Stewardship Council, the Forest Stewardship Council, or the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil – that could play an important role in mitigating non-climate drivers of ESTPs. The consolidation of control over certain industries by a handful of companies means that the decisions of certain corporate actors play a large role in their respective sectors, and in shaping environmental conditions. Due to this influence, they have been called ‘keystone actors’ drawing on the term ‘keystone species’ in ecology (Österblom et al., 2015). Recent efforts to quantify and draw attention to the impacts of the financial sector on deforestation of the Amazon (and other forests) through NGOs such as Forests & Finance Coalition could serve a similar role for the Amazon by redirecting financial flows away from destructive activities and towards regenerative ones.