Four positive tipping points that could trigger unstoppable change – Positive News

Imagine sitting on an ordinary chair. Now, lean back gently. Depending on where exactly you are balanced, you could tilt forward to safety, or go crashing backwards. A fraction of a degree is enough to determine your fate. It’s an analogy used by Prof Tim Lenton in his new book Positive Tipping Points: when a threshold is crossed and unstoppable change begins to unfold, a tipping point occurs.

The University of Exeter scientist, who has spent his career researching climate tipping points, offers lots of examples.

The marooning of the Ever Given, the cargo ship that became wedged across the Suez Canal in March 2021, for instance, highlights what Lenton calls “non-linear change”. The actions of the crew, plus other logistical challenges and weather conditions, led to the ship eventually blocking around 30% of the world’s container traffc. “What starts out small – the decision of a ship’s captain or the mutation of a virus – can sometimes cascade into global consequences,” he says.

But what if it were possible to harness the power of positive tipping points?

“Instead of turning away from the complexity and enormity of the climate crisis,” he says, “we need to understand how tipping points can self-propel change. That way we can truly appreciate the risks we are facing and find the agency to accelerate the changes that can get us out of trouble.”

History is full of examples. The suffragettes, for instance who, through protests and acts of civil disobedience, eventually tipped mass public opinion in favour of their cause.

More recently, Greta Thunberg’s School Strike for Climate demonstrates how the acts of a solo schoolgirl sitting outside the Swedish parliament ballooned into a global campaign.

Here are four more positive tipping points that have already reached mass adoption, or have the potential to in time.

1. Norway: streets ahead with EV adoption

Norway is about nine years ahead of the global car market in its tipping to EVs, says Lenton. Including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, market share is 90% in the Scandinavian country. This is thanks to policy and financial incentives that were in part triggered by a group of activists – the frontman of pop band A-ha, Morten Harket, among them – who campaigned in the 80s and 90s to get the government to remove barriers to EV adoption.

“Norway’s leadership in being the first country to reach an EV tipping point is important for all of us, because driving cars is currently responsible for about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions,” says Lenton.

2. The UK and Denmark have tipped away from coal power

In September 2024, the last coal-burning power station in the UK closed, signalling the final nail in the coffin for dirty energy in the country. Several policy changes contributed to making the tipping point to green power irreversible, including a 2013 carbon tax on emissions generated in the power sector. At the same time renewable energy capacity in the grid was growing exponentially. “Profitable coal plants became loss-making overnight,” explains Lenton.

Today, over half of the UK’s power comes from renewables. It’s a similar story in Denmark, which produces 60% of the country’s power from wind. Meanwhile, solar PV has reached a positive tipping point globally, with panels falling in cost by more than 90% in the last decade.

“As solar and wind power continue to get cheaper, the economics are swinging inexorably in their favour,” says Lenton.

3. Green hydrogen: the fuel with positive potential

Green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis, a process where renewables-powered electricity is used to split water molecules. This fuel, and its derivative green ammonia, can be used in a multitude of industrial sectors, from shipping and steel production to aviation and agriculture.

Although we are a few decades off from reaching a positive tipping point for a green hydrogen economy, “exponential growth is already under way,” says Lenton.

China leads, with about half of the global installed production capacity. Europe, meanwhile, has set a target for green hydrogen to meet at least 42% of existing hydrogen demand by 2030. And in the US, the inflation reduction act offers a substantial tax credit to green hydrogen producers.

While it will require a “heroic effort” to scale up green hydrogen production, the positive tipping point to renewable energy is continually making the fuel more affordable.

4. Plant-based diets hold the key to nature regeneration

There is no ‘one size fits all’ positive tipping point for nature and farming, explains Lenton. What is universal, however, is the key underlying cause of the destruction of nature: diets.

High meat consumption is still the status quo in most countries, but there are encouraging signs of change. “Peak meat consumption has been reached in some rich countries, including New Zealand, Canada and Switzerland,” he says, and investment in alternative proteins has “grown exponentially”. Alt-proteins such as plant-based substitutes and foods made from precision fermentation are still at an earlier stage of mass adoption than green hydrogen. “To displace conventional animal products, alternative proteins need to become more attractive, affordable and accessible to us consumers.”

Positive Tipping Points, by Tim Lenton, is out now, and is published by Oxford University Press. 

Read more on this topic in our series Positive Tipping Points, which is about people who are discovering ways to trigger significant and cascading positive changes within the climate crisis.

Illustrations: Andrea Manzati