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 attention EVs receive from the general public is a further possible indicator of change (Boulton et al., 2023). A time series of view share (proportion of advert views that are for EV cars rather than non-EV cars) on AutoTrader, a prominent UK website, shows that there has been a general increase in view share from 2018 up to July 2023 (Figure 4.4.11). Also clear is that, at certain times, spikes in attention can occur, a few days after which view share returns to normal. These spikes in attention can be directly linked to specific external events:
We measure how long it takes for attention to return to ‘normal’ after each spike (i)-(v) as an early opportunity indicator (see Section 1.6 and Section 2.5), by determining how long it takes for a spike in attention to decay by 75 per cent. For each successive spike (Figure 4.4.11b-f), there is a clear increase in the length of time it takes for decay to happen, i.e. for the system to return to 75 per cent of its pre-spike level (Figure 4.4.11b-f), increasing by a factor of approximately six from point (i) in June 2020, to (v) in June 2022. This shows that the system is slowing down and the incumbent state of ICEV dominance is losing stability over time. Colloquially, one can imagine this increase in return time suggests that events are affecting the system more intensely, such that it takes longer for interest in EVs to die down after the event has passed and that this indicates the system is losing stability. Just as for market share in the sales data, we can also observe increases in AR(1) and variance in view share across the whole period (Figure 4.4.12).
Compared to sales data, this dataset provides the opportunity to measure actors’ instantaneous reactions to events, as they do not have to interact with the system in such a strongly committed way such as buying a vehicle. As such, we are able to better determine people’s interest using this novel dataset. These results imply that critical slowing down is occuring in the view share of EV adverts, and thus that a tipping point is being approached such that they may rapidly gain the majority of view share.