As politicians in Australia, and around the world, continue to push back against climate change action we have reached our first climate change tipping point.
According to contributions from 160 scientists, from 87 institutions, in 23 countries, in the 2025 Global Tipping Points Report we are experiencing our first tipping point.
‘Already at 1.40C of global warming, warm water coral reefs are crossing their thermal tipping point and experiencing unprecedented dieback,’ states the Global Tipping Points Report.
This point is driven home in New Scientist as they emphasise that, ‘Record-breaking global temperatures documented since 2023 have pushed ocean heat levels to new highs, triggering a mass bleaching event that has affected more than 80 per cent of all the world’s corals.’
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), tipping points are ‘critical thresholds in a system that, when exceeded, can lead to a significant change in the state of the system, often with an understanding that the change is irreversible.’
According to the Global Tipping Points Report there are numerous vital world systems heading towards tipping points at under 20C rise in global warming. These include the potential collapse of the Atlanic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) ‘that would radically undermine global food and water security and plunge northwest Europe into prolonged severe winter,’ and the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest that could cause widespread dieback.’
‘Humanity faces a potentially catastrophic, irreversible outcome. If we wait to cross tipping points before we act, it will be too late. The only credible risk management strategy is to act in advance. But the window for preventing damaging tipping points is rapidly closing.’
The frustrating part is that the solutions are there and can be implemented if enough people, at all levels, chose to make this a key issue they are willing to push, because non-binding long-term or Net-Zero targets are not enough.
The report is clear that we need ‘unprecedented acceleration in decarbonisation’, addressing non-climate drivers including reducing overfishing, deforestation and forest degradation, acceleration of clean energy technologies, and transitioning away from fossil fuel use, regeneration of nature, and enabling finance to facilitate development of new technologies, are just some of the suggestions that the Global Tipping Points Report puts forward.
Understanding the science, being able to have the conversations with those around you is the beginning. Everyone can take action both locally and globally to drive the conversation and actions that are needed to make change. Call on your COP30 leaders and your government representatives to make the change we need.
Aslan Shand, editor
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