Experts in climate ‘tipping points’ have set three challenges for world leaders attending the COP30 climate change conference in Belém.
In a policy brief to accompany the publication of the Global Tipping Points Report, which gathered insights from an international team of 160 researchers, the experts call on leaders to minimise the overshoot of 1.5°C through an accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels.
In addition, they call on leaders to integrate tipping point risks into all governance, finance and security frameworks, and seek to trigger three ‘positive tipping points’ by 2030, in clean energy, food, and nature.
Important choices
“The choices we make at this moment matter enormously,” said Professor Tim Lenton of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter. “To minimise potentially catastrophic risks from crossing Earth system tipping points, ‘overshoot’ of 1.5°C global warming has to be minimised.
“COP30 convenes at a moment when the conditions for global cooperation are weakening, yet the need for coalitions of the willing has never been greater. Leaders face a stark choice: guide humanity carefully along a narrow ridge or risk a fall that future generations cannot climb back from.”
The policy brief includes a checklist for governance action to both meet the challenges posed by global tipping points, as well as implement a path from ‘peril to prosperity’.
Tipping point risks
Dr Manjana Milkoreit of the University of Oslo added that existing institutions don’t take the governance challenges posed by tipping points into account.
“Tipping point risks should be embedded in all national and regional climate, development and security strategies, along with early warning and rapid response mechanisms,” she commented. “It is vital to ‘frontload’ emissions cuts – phasing out fossil fuels as quickly as possible to reduce the risk of triggering Earth system tipping points.
“Governance should also address non-climate drivers of ecosystem collapse, scale sustainable carbon dioxide removal, and ensure justice and solidarity, supporting the most vulnerable nations and communities.”
The authors cite the COP30 conference as a turning point for embedding tipping point science into global decision-making. Read more here. [Photo: Raimundo Pacco/COP30]
