Tipping Point

Subject :Environment

Section: Climate change

Tipping Point

The sixth report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in 2021, defines a tipping point as a “critical threshold beyond which a system reorganizes, often abruptly and/or irreversibly”.
It can be brought about by a small disturbance causing a disproportionately large change in the system. It can also be associated with self-reinforcing feedbacks, which could lead to changes in the climate system irreversible on a human timescale.
For any particular climate component, the shift from one state to a new stable state may take many decades or centuries.
A danger is that if the tipping point in one system is crossed, this could cause a cascade of other tipping points, leading to severe, potentially catastrophic, impacts.
In ecosystems and in social systems, a tipping point can trigger a regime shift, a major systems reorganization into a new stable state.Such regime shifts need not be harmful.
In the context of the climate crisis, the tipping point metaphor is sometimes used in a positive sense, such as to refer to shifts in public opinion in favour of action to mitigate climate change, or the potential for minor policy changes to rapidly accelerate the transition to a green economy.