Earth Fund pledges £1m for positive tipping points research

Efforts to activate positive tipping points to tackle the climate crisis have been boosted by a £1 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund. A team, led by the University of Exeter and including Systemiq and the Systems Change Lab,  will use the funding to improve the assessment, forecasting and activation of positive tipping points. The initiative aims to produce a first “state of tipping points” report.

Small changes can sometimes have a big and positive trigger effect, bringing about a rapid transformation on a much wider scale. If the right factors combine to ‘tip’ some of our socio-economic systems, this could have a positive climate impact and help build a resilient economy.

As Professor Tim Lenton, Director of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, explains: “Positive tipping points in socio-economic systems must be found and triggered to radically accelerate the decarbonisation of the global economy, to limit the risk from highly damaging tipping points in the climate system.”

Systemiq’s Director of Low-Carbon Energy & Sustainable Finance, Mark Meldrum, explains where we have already seen the tipping point effect in action.

Systemiq will lead on producing an updated analysis ahead of COP27, building on its findings from the Paris Effect reports (2020, 2021) which highlighted that positive tipping points could be achieved before 2030 in sectors representing 90% of emissions.

“We focus intently on accelerating tipping points that can deliver outsized returns in terms of climate impact and build a resilient economy,” says Mark Meldrum, lead author of the Paris Effect reports. “Understanding how to engineer positive tipping points should help us to zero-in our collective efforts in slowing climate change. We hope that this analysis will shed light on where the biggest opportunities lie, and highlight critical gaps in knowledge where more research would prove valuable.”