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Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth's climate by 2050
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4935-7660
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Germany; Stockholm University, Sweden.
Climate Service Center Germany, Germany.
Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Department of Political, Historical, Religious and Cultural Studies (from 2013).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7137-0741
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2020 (English)In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, ISSN 0027-8424, E-ISSN 1091-6490, Vol. 117, no 5, p. 2354-2365Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Safely achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement requires a worldwide transformation to carbon-neutral societies within the next 30 y. Accelerated technological progress and policy implementations are required to deliver emissions reductions at rates sufficiently fast to avoid crossing dangerous tipping points in the Earth's climate system. Here, we discuss and evaluate the potential of social tipping interventions (STIs) that can activate contagious processes of rapidly spreading technologies, behaviors, social norms, and structural reorganization within their functional domains that we refer to as social tipping elements (STE5). STE5 are subdomains of the planetary socioeconomic system where the required disruptive change may take place and lead to a sufficiently fast reduction in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The results are based on online expert elicitation, a subsequent expert workshop, and a literature review. The STIs that could trigger the tipping of STE subsystems include 1) removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation (STE1, energy production and storage systems), 2) building carbon-neutral cities (STE2, human settlements), 3) divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels (STE3, financial markets), 4) revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels (STE4, norms and value systems), 5) strengthening climate education and engagement (STE5, education system), and 6) disclosing information on greenhouse gas emissions (STE6, information feedbacks). Our research reveals important areas of focus for larger-scale empirical and modeling efforts to better understand the potentials of harnessing social tipping dynamics for climate change mitigation.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
The National Academy of Sciences , 2020. Vol. 117, no 5, p. 2354-2365
Keywords [en]
climate change, Paris Agreement, decarbonization, social tipping elements, social tipping interventions
National Category
Climate Science
Research subject
Risk and Environmental Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-77097DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900577117ISI: 000512340900025PubMedID: 31964839OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-77097DiVA, id: diva2:1397174
Available from: 2020-02-27 Created: 2020-02-27 Last updated: 2026-02-12Bibliographically approved

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Bhowmik, Avit Kumar

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Otto, Ilona M.Bhowmik, Avit KumarLenferna, Alex
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