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).
The three specific applications discussed so far illustrate how digital technologies can enable PTPs and act as multipliers of societal change in the context of the ASI framework. Importantly, digitalisation has myriad possible applications that can be utilised to accelerate socio-economic transformations towards a post-carbon, regenerative society. Indeed, similar dynamics to those described above could be discussed with respect to other sectors and applications. For instance, digital technologies can contribute to avoiding food waste (4.3.3.2) and improving sustainable consumer practices in the food sector – e.g. through digital provenance systems and blockchain-based certification. They can also avoid unnecessary energy demand (Wilson et al., 2020, also 4.3.2), promote pro-environmental behaviours as well as improved practices at the level of urban planning (Milojevic-Dupont and Creutzig, 2021) and favour asset sharing in freight transport (Box 4.3.4). In the supply side of the energy sector, digital technologies are necessary for the large-scale deployment of smart grids and the integration of prosumers – that is, actors that both consume and produce energy. Other instances in which digital technologies could enable PTPs include:
More generally, advances in digitalisation and AI can enhance our abilities to automate and optimise processes – e.g. coupling production processes such as green hydrogen production to fluctuating renewable energy production processes (Yang et al., 2022). The new generation of large-scale language models (LLMs, which underpin services like ChatGPT), combined with a human loop training iteration, can produce question-specific knowledge to citizens, starting from a curated compilation of the existing literature on planetary health and climate change (Debnath et al., 2023).