Cop26 showed a key shift in thinking to resolve climate crisis, report says

Positive tipping points may lead to rapid adoption of green technology

The Cop26 UN summit in Glasgow was attended by hundreds of politicians, including US President Joe Biden, and climate change activists. AP.

The Cop26 summit in Glasgow resulted in a key shift in thinking to resolve the climate change crisis, a report has found, dispelling concerns that the event failed to make an impact.

In November last year, thousands of global figures converged on the Scottish city and discussed ways to achieve a carbon-neutral future and keep global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2050.

A study has found that Cop26's Breakthrough Agenda may help to bring positive tipping points that could lead to the rapid adoption of green technology.

Signatories to the agreement pledged to "make clean technologies and sustainable solutions the most affordable, accessible and attractive option in each emitting sector globally before 2030".

By focussing on boosting economic sectors where the "green" option is cheapest and easiest, governments may have started a series events that will ultimately lead to a drop in carbon emissions.

The paper from Exeter University looks at the "enabling conditions" for a tipping point, such as the declining price of a green technology.

Combinations of factors such as cost and public attitude have helped to bring about tipping points in electric vehicles and solar energy.

The paper also examines how these points can be brought on, for example through protests by Greta Thunberg that resulted in a surge in global activism.

"The only way we can get anywhere near our global targets on key issues like carbon emissions and biodiversity is through positive tipping points," said lead author Prof Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter.

"The challenges are enormous – we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and reverse biodiversity loss to make our impact 'nature-positive'.

"The Breakthrough Agenda is the first time a large group of countries has agreed joint climate change goals in the form of economic tipping points.

"We argued for precisely this in a previous paper, and we are heartened to see world leaders adopting this approach. Our new paper shows a variety of ways that tipping points can be activated.

"Societies worldwide will need to put all of these into action to bring about low-carbon transitions at the pace and scale required to avoid dangerous climate change."

Prof Lenton highlighted the growth and acceptance of plant-based diets, including meat substitutes, as one of the next major changes.

"These changes often start with small groups of people with a big idea," he said. "These can become networks of change that grow into large movements with a major impact.

"Public and private money is also important. Public money is often first, funding research and development, and private finance then comes to drive an idea at scale."

The paper, written by a team including researchers from Hamburg University and University College London and published in the journal Global Sustainability, is entitled: Operationalising Positive Tipping Points towards Global Sustainability.

The researchers say their framework for finding and bringing about tipping points needs "testing and refining".

"There is no better way forward than to learn by doing," they said.

"Continuing to delay action to accelerate a just transformation towards global sustainability will only accentuate the need to find and trigger even more dramatic positive tipping points in the future..