{"id":36621,"date":"2025-07-09T10:55:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T08:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/?p=36621"},"modified":"2025-07-09T10:57:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T08:57:22","slug":"tipping-points-time-to-avert-irreversible-climate-impacts-is-rapidly-decreasing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/2025\/07\/09\/tipping-points-time-to-avert-irreversible-climate-impacts-is-rapidly-decreasing\/","title":{"rendered":"Tipping Points: Time to avert irreversible climate impacts is \u201crapidly running out\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The recent Global Tipping Points Conference 2025 in Exeter, UK, focused on an urgent warning: the window to avert irreversible climate impacts is \u201cfast closing.\u201d The event, which <!--more-->was labeled a \u201ccall to action\u201d for the research community, policymakers and business leaders, highlighting the importance of understanding and accelerating action on \u201ctipping points\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are tipping points?<\/strong> Tipping points, or \u201ctipping points,\u201d are thresholds beyond which parts of the Earth system can shift irreversibly and often abruptly to a new state. They are caused by \u201creinforcing feedbacks\u201d in the system that become \u201cself-perpetuating\u201d and \u201cvery difficult to reverse.\u201d Since the first Tipping Points Conference in 2022, global temperatures have risen, bringing many of the Earth\u2019s tipping points closer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key risks and compromised systems<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Professors Tim Lenton and Johan Rockstr\u00f6m, co-chairs of the conference, highlighted that global warming is pushing many Earth systems closer to their tipping points. Johan Rockstr\u00f6m warned that Earth system risks have reached \u201cglobally catastrophic\u201d levels. The biggest risks with high severity and probability of occurrence include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets<\/strong>: These shelves contain enough ice to raise sea levels by 65 metres. Prof. Ricarda Winkelmann described these systems as \u201cslowly evolving\u201d but capable of \u201crapid and abrupt changes\u201d, as demonstrated by the massive break-off of the Ilulissat glacier. Modelling studies suggest a \u201cdanger zone\u201d for the Ross Shelf of between 3.5-4\u00b0C and for the Filchner-Ronne Shelf of between 5-5.5\u00b0C of global warming. The increase in salinity in the Southern Ocean since 2015 suggests that \u201cthe ocean may have entered a new system\u201d where warmer, saltier water makes it harder for sea ice to re-grow.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The dying of the Amazon rainforest<\/strong>: This rainforest is at risk of transitioning to dry savannah at just 3-5\u00b0C of global warming. Decades of \u201chigh levels of deforestation and degradation\u201d are reducing water recycling, leading to droughts and forest fires, and even pushing the temperature threshold for extinction lower. Modeling studies suggest that the risk of the Amazon dying increases dramatically at 1.5-2\u00b0C of warming, when deforestation is taken into account.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Atlantic Meridian Overturning Circulation (AMOC) Discontinuation<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Furthermore, the analysis shows that <strong>26% of global land area is threatened by at least one ecological \u201cchange regime\u201d<\/strong>, affecting 3.4 billion people (43% of the world&#039;s population). Coral reefs (31%), tundra (transition to boreal forest, 30%) and tropical forests (transition to savanna, 28%) are at risk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The potential for \u201cpositive tipping points\u201d<\/strong> The conference also focused heavily on \u201cpositive tipping points,\u201d which represent large-scale, self-driving societal changes capable of reducing human impact on the climate. Prof. Lenton said that \u201cthere is a compelling argument that we could get out of trouble more quickly\u201d by focusing on these points. Examples include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Rapid introduction of electric vehicles (EVs)<\/strong>: Declining costs and increasing purchases are creating a \u201cfeedback loop\u201d that is driving exponential growth in EV sales, while conventional car sales are plummeting in key countries.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Shift in energy and industry<\/strong>: The power generation sector is undergoing a successful transformation, and although the transformation of the steel industry is in its early stages, clean steel subsidies (such as the US Inflation Reduction Act) may accelerate the \u201crisk perception tipping point\u201d where delayed, not early, action becomes a risk.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&quot;Doughnut economics&quot; and planetary health<\/strong>: A growing number of cities and regions are adopting a \u201cdoughnut economics\u201d framework that balances human needs and planetary boundaries. The Malaysian government has adopted a planetary health framework into its development plan.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Changing eating habits<\/strong>: A project in Denmark is promoting a shift to a plant-based diet through community actions, which could lead to a \u201cdeep ecological transformation.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The idea of positive tipping points changes the political narrative: instead of taxation, which is politically difficult, the focus is on \u201covercoming the initial hurdle\u201d after which the system will take off on its own (as was the case with the solar revolution). The research community is looking for a \u201crecipe\u201d and a \u201ctoolbox\u201d to identify signals of destabilization of existing systems and accelerate positive change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The importance of governance and communication<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The conference stressed the importance of strong global and local governance in implementing policies to halt global warming. The need for \u201cprevention\u201d and \u201creorganization\u201d was discussed. The successful Montreal Protocol (a binding agreement to limit emissions of ozone-depleting substances) was cited as an example of how agreements must be binding, not voluntary.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists need to better communicate the risks of tipping points to spur action. Rockstr\u00f6m noted that the media has a \u201chuge responsibility\u201d and it is \u201cunfortunate\u201d that they downplay the risks and only allow \u201csound bites\u201d from scientists. Nevertheless, as Prof. Winkelmann said, the media \u201ccan play an incredibly important role in moving things forward.\u201d It is disappointing that countries have decided not to include a special report on tipping points in the IPCC\u2019s Seventh Assessment Report (AR7) because the topic \u201cconcerns politicians and some member countries.\u201d However, there will be \u201ca lot more science on tipping points\u201d in AR7 thanks to new modelling programs like TIPMIP.<\/p>\n<p><strong>New scientific findings and next steps<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>New scientific findings presented at the conference include initial results from the international Tipping-point Modelling Intercomparison Project (TIPMIP), which provides the \u201cstrongest scientific basis\u201d for analyzing tipping points. Another project, the What If Modelling Intercomparison Project (WhatIfMIP), examines the cascading effects of one tipping point on another.<\/p>\n<p>Future plans include further conferences on tipping points in Malaysia (2026) and Berlin (2027). A second global report on tipping points is planned for the second half of 2025 and will focus on governance issues and case studies. The scientific community is also invited to develop a \u201crobust risk assessment of tipping point dynamics\u201d and a \u201cfirst global atlas of tipping point financial risks\u201d for the IPCC AR7. However, funding cuts to climate research, for example in the US, are worrying as they threaten our ability to monitor Earth system destabilization.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the conference declaration called on governments to adopt policies that will help trigger positive tipping points in their economies and societies, with the aim of generating self-driving changes towards net-zero emissions. It was highlighted that <strong>&quot;decisive policy and civil society action&quot; are essential for the world to &quot;turn from facing the uncontrollable risks of tipping points to seizing the opportunities of positive tipping points&quot;<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The recent Global Tipping Points Conference 2025 in Exeter, UK, focused on an urgent warning: the window to avert irreversible climate impacts is \u201cfast closing.\u201d The event, which<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klimaticka-zmena"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}