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).
Tipping points present a set of specific learning challenges that could undermine governance efforts. Nonlinear state changes are a feature of many complex Earth system components (Young, 2012; 2017), which require complex systems thinking, often involving a fundamental change in decision makers’ assumptions about reality and the nature of change (i.e. an ontological shift) from a mechanistic, linear and simple single-cause model to one centring emergence, nonlinearity and multi-causality. As Renn (2022) notes, tipping points are a type of systemic risk that render trial-and-error approaches to learning useless, demanding novel approaches to learning, such as immersive game-based techniques.
ESTPs occur at unusual spatial and temporal scales, for which common governance approaches are unsuitable. Tipping systems, including ocean circulation patterns or transboundary ecosystems, introduce a distinct spatial scale for governance that often cross national and even continental boundaries – for example, the Amazon basin, Atlantic Ocean or Arctic. In the absence of governance institutions or polities representing all relevant actors for this specific scale, knowledge development is challenging. For some tipping systems, such as ocean currents, scale-specific knowledge producers are scarce or disconnected from decision making. The multiple timescales of Earth system tipping, including extremely long time horizons, present profound challenges for learning, assessing and valuing potential future outcomes and for including timescale considerations in present-day decision making and governance.
The production of scientific knowledge involves dealing with uncertainties, some of which cannot be reduced through further research. This applies to ESTPs. We might detect signals that a system is approaching a tipping point, but not be able to predict when and under what specific conditions the threshold will be reached. For ‘slow’ tipping systems, science might not be able to state whether or not a tipping point has been crossed for decades, and given that there may be no clearly established or observable ‘event’ indicators at the time the threshold is crossed, tipping points may be passed with no notice. The limitations of scientific knowledge about tipping points in turn have significant implications for governance, dramatically elevating the need for precaution, an expanded toolbox for dealing with uncertainty, and processes to create anticipatory capacities such as decision makers’ abilities to engage in long-term thinking. At the same time, there is evidence that this kind of uncertainty inhibits cooperation and collective action (Barrett and Dannenberg, 2012; 2014; Schill, Lindahl, and Crépin, 2015).
Some of the key questions that remain to be clarified when co-producing knowledge about tipping points include: