How can we identify positive tipping points for climate action?
Stopping global warming is essential if we want to achieve sustainability and meet the Paris Agreement goals. However, the global economy will need to decarbonise at least five times faster than it is currently doing, to limit global warming to “well below 2 °C”.
Positive ‘tipping points’ where low-carbon transitions become self-propelling could be key to ensuring this acceleration and making it hard to reverse. These tipping points don’t just happen in sectors like energy or transport, but also in nature and regeneration.
But how can we credibly identify them? A new scientific paper sets out a methodology for identifying potential positive tipping points, the factors that can influence them, and the actions to trigger them.
The framework proposed in the paper offers a simple but powerful process:
- Map the system – who are the key actors? What are the feedback loops?
- Look for leverage – what factors (eg cost, access or social acceptance) are holding change back, or could speed it up?
- Trigger strategically – introduce targeted actions (eg pilot projects) that shift behaviours and start reinforcing feedback.
The framework asks a series of questions, which can be applied to a system of interest – for example a sector of the economy responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions like transport, or a sector in a particular country or city. This can also be applied in nature-based sectors too, such as food, agriculture, fisheries and land use.
Lenton et al, 2025
Is there potential for a positive tipping point?
- Is there evidence that this system or an analogous system has tipped in the past or elsewhere?
- Are there reinforcing feedbacks in this system that could become strong enough to overwhelm balancing feedbacks and support self-propelling change?
Can the nature and/or proximity of a tipping point be quantified?
- Are there continuous data that describe the overall behaviour of the system in time?
- Are there process-specific data that can quantify causal interactions, learning rates, and feedback loops?
Can the factors that most affect the tipping point be identified?
- What do models reveal? Are detailed case studies available?
Can actions that bring forward the tipping point be identified?
The paper invites researchers to help refine this methodology further, and sets out suggestions for further work to improve it and make it more applicable.
More information
Lenton, T.M., Powell, T.W.R., Smith, S.R. et al. A method to identify positive tipping points to accelerate low-carbon transitions and actions to trigger them. Sustain Sci (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-025-01704-9
The CBA’s Chief Programmes Officer Talia Smith is a co-author.
Photo: Patricio Gaibor, Unsplash
