Could Climate Tipping Points Be Avoided With Social Tipping Points?

In the early 2000s, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) introduced the concept of a climate tipping point— a warming threshold that, when crossed, causes an irreversible positive feedback loop, producing cascading effects on the climate. When the term was born, the IPCC believed these tipping points would only occur if global warming reached 5ºC. Two decades later, a major review study published by Science journal warned that there is a “significant likelihood” of multiple climate tipping points being crossed if global warming exceeds 1.5°C, and a possibility that some tipping points may have been hit already.