Oct 14, 2026 · 29 min · 11 segments
Not all tipping points are negative – and not all of them relate to the climate. So, what are positive tipping points? And how about social tipping points as well? Dr Steve Smith, Research Fellow at…
Paul TurnerHost
Jan BebbingtonHost
It's really good to understand how positive tipping points work, Jan, because you hear positive tipping points and it's not always clear what needs to happen, who needs to do what, how many people need to be involved, but quite a lot of the stuff that Steve said there gives you a really clear picture of the kind of thing that needs to happen.
And so whilst decarbonisation of vehicles, decarbonisation of the energy system is a technical job, and it's really important that it is, there's that social movement part of it as well.
So for us as individuals or communities or families or wider groups, we can actually be part of something that leads to positive change.
And as Steve was happy to admit, yes, businesses have their role to play, especially groups of businesses and how they become involved and what they can do.
both addressing the negative tipping points and then different positive tipping points to make sure they happen, such as, let's say, we talked about this in the very first episode, what happened in Norway with the electric car movement and that taking off substantially after it passed a certain point.
It's really good to understand how positive tipping points work, Jan, because you hear positive tipping points and it's not always clear what needs to happen, who needs to do what, how many people need to be involved, but quite a lot of the stuff that Steve said there gives you a really clear picture of the kind of thing that needs to happen.
And so whilst decarbonisation of vehicles, decarbonisation of the energy system is a technical job, and it's really important that it is, there's that social movement part of it as well.
So for us as individuals or communities or families or wider groups, we can actually be part of something that leads to positive change.
And as Steve was happy to admit, yes, businesses have their role to play, especially groups of businesses and how they become involved and what they can do.
both addressing the negative tipping points and then different positive tipping points to make sure they happen, such as, let's say, we talked about this in the very first episode, what happened in Norway with the electric car movement and that taking off substantially after it passed a certain point.
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