Global hunt for ‘positive tipping points’ - University of Exeter

Experts are calling for a global effort to identify “positive tipping points” to accelerate the green transition – and have devised a method to find them.

A tipping point is a threshold where a small change can trigger a significant, often irreversible, transformation.

With climate change becoming increasingly damaging and dangerous, positive tipping points in human societies and economies can spark rapid reductions in emissions and other environmental harm.

Positive tipping points are already happening – with solar power and electric vehicles rapidly displacing fossil-fuelled alternatives – but many more are needed to ensure a thriving, sustainable future.

“The global economy is decarbonising at least five times too slowly to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to well below 2°C,” said Professor Tim Lenton, from the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter. “The challenge now is to identify potential positive tipping points, and the actions that can bring them forward – while avoiding wishful thinking about their existence, or oversimplification of their nature, drivers and impacts.”

The paper – by an international team of researchers – sets out a methodology for identifying positive tipping points, assessing their proximity, identifying the factors that can influence them, and the actions that can trigger them.

This includes looking for evidence that a system, or a similar system, has “tipped” in the past.

Another factor is whether there is potential for “self-propelling uptake” of zero- or low-carbon behaviours, products and/or technologies.

For example, as more people buy electric cars, the performance, price and infrastructure improve – making it easier for others to follow, and thereby accelerating the transition.

The paper, published in the journal Sustainability Science, is entitled: “A method to identify positive tipping points to accelerate low-carbon transitions and actions to trigger them.”