PUSHING TIPPING POINTS - THE GOOD ONES
This article is a co-ed with Tim Lenton - first published on World Economic Forum 08.07.2024
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/07/positive-tipping-points-climate-nature-goals-wef/
“Climate action is moving too slowly and too incrementally to hit the Paris Climate Agreement target. To protect lives and livelihoods globally, action must now focus on meeting positive tipping points that cascade benefits once hit. The biggest positive tipping point would be to adopt a better measure of progress than growth of GDP.
We need the acceleration of self-propelling change that happens on crossing a tipping point – but in the human systems that are currently driving greenhouse gas emissions and nature loss. The good news is that we are starting to see positive tipping points unfold in our societies and technology.
They happen when amplifying (positive) feedback takes over from damping (negative) feedback and gets strong enough to support self-propelling change. The uptake of EVs, solar and wind power — and the decline of coal power — have all become exponential in some nations.
That is thanks to strong reinforcing feedback loops, including learning-by-doing and economies-of-scale, that have radically reduced the price and improved the quality and accessibility of green technologies, coupled with social contagion in their uptake.
For those nations and sectors that have already tipped — like the UK shutting down coal power from 40% to 0% of electricity generation — the self-propelling ‘S-curve’ of change has produced a world-leading rate of decarbonization.”
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