Landmark new research from The Earthshot Prize and the University of Exeter's Green Futures Solutions team, published today, reveals 51 environmental solutions that can trigger rapid and transformative change to repair our planet within the next five years. After a northern summer of extreme heat and fire, and as the world prepares for an unprecedented El Nino, the research provides a new, unifying agenda for positive action.
Positive Tipping Points: Accelerating system change to repair our planet, furthers Professor Tim Lenton's pioneering research, by expanding positive tipping point science to all five Earthshots: Protect and Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build a Waste-Free World, and Fix Our Climate. The Earthshot Prize will use the findings to identify solutions with the potential to trigger rapid systems change.
The planet is fast approaching negative tipping points, such as the dieback of Amazon rainforest, where catastrophic harm to ecosystems becomes irreversible. Yet, the same science provides an opportunity with positive tipping points, a threshold where progress can become rapid and self-reinforcing. For example, when adoption lowers costs, success attracts further investment and new policy spreads to other geographies, creating a cascade effect of progress.
Professor Tim Lenton, Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter said: "To reverse damage to our ecosystems before it's too late, we need to unlock positive tipping points, where progress builds on itself, costs fall with scale, and recovery becomes self-propelling. This is why this research is so relevant and needed, as it identifies the tipping points that collectively represent the best chance of repairing our planet and how we can reach them."
Jason Knauf, CEO of The Earthshot Prize, said: "For too long a sense has prevailed that solutions to the climate and nature are out of reach. This new research explodes that myth once and for all. Devastating wildfires, extreme heat and floods are a clarion call for change. We must move faster to repair our planet. This pivotal research gives us reasons for optimism. This is a blueprint for turning ambition into action to place our planet on a path of rapid repair. The Earthshot Prize will apply this latest science to find and back the solutions capable of triggering exponential progress for our planet by 2030. The challenge is immense and, yet, as this research shows, so is the opportunity."
The research highlights where targeted action is already leading to rapid and transformative change, including:
- Clean energy as a master cascade: As solar and wind have become cheaper, the economics of electric transport, clean buildings, industry and cleaner air have improved. Solar power costs have fallen around 90% in the past decade, and as deployment grows, manufacturing costs fall. Falling costs have unlocked further deployment, which has driven costs lower still, attracting more investment and improving the technology. Today, solar is the cheapest source of electricity in most of the world.
- Marine protected areas become self-reinforcing: Well-designed and well-enforced ocean conservation has produced visible recovery of fish stocks and biodiversity within years. As communities have reaped the benefits of marine conservation, protection areas have expanded and progress accelerated. In turn food security for coastal populations and climate resilience has strengthened with examples including The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia. In January, the High Seas Treaty came into force, with the backing of over 140 countries, to close the gap in ocean conversation and protect biodiversity in international waters.
- Clean cooking and household energy: Clean cooking is close to a tipping point in several markets as pay-as-you-go solar and clean cooking businesses scale across East and Southern Africa. In Latin America and parts of Asia, the LPG transition is substantially complete, bringing health benefits to millions.
Creating the right conditions for a solution area to tip is critical. The research sets out three prerequisites that are needed across all five Earthshots:
- Affordability – the desired solution must be cost-competitive with the damaging incumbent.
- Accessibility – it must be practically and geographically available to those who need to adopt it.
- Attractiveness – it must perform well enough, with enough social proof, to make adoption the obvious choice.
A central finding is that, by design, the five Earthshots are deeply interconnected, sharing the same conditions, infrastructure and risks within a single system. This means that certain interventions, such as the clean electricity cascade, could accelerate positive tipping points across all five Earthshots; while barriers, such as the Global South investment gap, could stall progress in the regions that need it most.
Dr Steven R. Smith, lead author of the report and Research Fellow in the University of Exeter's Green Futures Solutions team, added:"We looked at 51 solution areas across nature, oceans, air, waste and climate, and were struck by how progress in one area often depends on progress in another. We're not claiming every system is about to tip. Our report shows where the self-reinforcing mechanisms are, and what governments, investors and innovators can do to unlock them."
To read the report, visit https://greenfuturessolutions.com/tipping-points-report-earthshot-prize
