JANUARY 11, 2021

by University of Exeter

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-positive-climate.html

Positive “tipping points” could spark cascading changes that accelerate action on climate change, experts say.https://baaa22512251a94800a1189bf95cc98a.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

A tipping point is a moment when a small change triggers a large, often irreversible, response.

Professor Tim Lenton, Director of the Global Systems Institute (GSI) at the University of Exeter, has previously warned the world is “dangerously close” to several tipping points that could accelerate climate change.

But in a new paper in the journalClimate Policy, Professor Lenton and Simon Sharpe, a Deputy Director in the UK Cabinet Office COP 26 unit, identify tipping points in human societies that could rapidly cutcarbon emissions.

They highlight examples of such tipping points that have contributed to the world’s fastest low-carbon transitions inroad transportand power generation—and say “small coalitions of countries” could trigger “upward-scaling tipping cascades” to achieve more.