Global Tipping Points 2026: An Introduction

I'm gonna, I'm gonna back up slightly, though, and bring us to thinking about the Anthropocene in the first instance.

And we've had a podcast on the Anthropocene before, but that Anthropocene framing is where human actions are affecting the large-scale operation of the planet, the systems of the planet being affected by them, one of them being the climate system.

Mm-hmm.

So with that in play, then you say, well, how is the climate system operating? And this is where two things become really relevant to the thinking, and these are two scientific frameworks that sit behind everything that's happening at the conference.

The first one is the idea that there are planetary boundaries.

There are safe operating spaces for us to live in as a planetary community, but those safe operating spaces might also need to be just as well.

So, you get the safe and just planetary boundaries framework.

Mm.

But if these planetary boundaries are breached, then you get to the tipping points.

And so, that's where the Anthropocene to planetary boundaries to tipping points come in.

So, tipping points is where something in the system, and it's really started in the climate system, changes such that the way it used to operate before no longer operates that way.

So, you tip yourself into a new kind of steady state.

Or, you know, it might take it a while to be a steady state.

But the fear is that that new place that you end up is not as livable as the place you've been in before.

Yes.

So, cumulative thresholds-

Mm

... are something we're quite interested in, but also the idea that once you tip over, coming back is much harder.

So, avoiding them is a great idea.

And the thing about tipping point as well is it's not a gradual change, 'cause we s- we've seen gradual changes.

This is a- as we're working towards the various tipping points that exist, and we see the gradual changes, whether it be in terms of glacier melting, in terms of what's happening with coral reefs, in terms of what's happening in the Amazon rainforest, with the ice shelves and the Atlantic current, you see.

But then suddenly, you reach a point where instead of, uh, say, a steady slow decline, it's a really sudden fast decline to something that's so far away from where you started.

So, it's not a tipping point where you've gone just a little bit away from where you started, you've gone a long way from where you started, and you can't get back.

Indeed.

And so, it's a rapid change, which is what's really, um, exercising scientists, exercising policy makers, et cetera.