A new project aims to identify "societal tipping points" to ensure a safe future for humanity on Earth.
With global warming set to exceed 1.5°C, the extent and duration of "overshoot" above this level must be minimised to avoid existential risks.
An international team of researchers say this can only be achieved through a rapid transformation of how our societies think, organise, produce, consume and move.
The project - which has received a European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant of almost 10 million euros - will diagnose how such societal tipping can occur, and whether it could bring Earth back within a "safe operating space".
The team is jointly led by researchers from the University of Exeter, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Wageningen University & Research, and Princeton University.
Professor Tim Lenton, Exeter's lead researcher on the project, said: "I am over the moon about this funding award, as it will enable us to answer to what extent positive social tipping points can get us safely back within planetary boundaries."
Dr Femke Nijsse, deputy director of Exeter Climate Policy, said: "I'm really pleased to see this project funded. I'm excited that we can now explore, with real-world evidence, how positive tipping points can reinforce each other to help bring about a sustainable future faster."
Professor Johan Rockström, PIK director, said: "Until now, we have focused mainly on understanding and avoiding negative tipping points. But it is just as important to understand how we can trigger positive ones. This project gives us the opportunity to answer these questions and help shape a more sustainable future."
Professor Marten Scheffer, Wageningen's lead on the project, said: "Exeter and Wageningen are global leaders of the research on anticipating tipping points. Now we will apply all we learned to the questions that keep us awake at night."
Professor Elke Weber, Director of the Behavioral Science for Policy Lab at Princeton University, added: "Many researchers and organisations have called for sustainability research that crosses levels of analysis, from individual action to collective action and on to system-level responses, as well as research that bridges theory and empirics and enriches our models of the energy transition. In Project Groundswell we will combine our expertise and give it our best shot to do all that."
A tipping point is a threshold where a small change can trigger a significant, often irreversible, transformation.
Researchers have identified many Earth system tipping points that will cause catastrophic harm unless humanity takes urgent action.
However, "positive tipping points" in our societies and economies could offer a route to a safe, just and sustainable future.
The new project will analyse how past societal transformations emerged and unfolded, and probe current trends in the energy and food sectors to detect approaching social and technological transformations.
It will also explore the role of individual and collective motivation and decision making and how they shape - and are shaped by - social and technological innovation, as well as environmental change.
Using this evidence-based approach, the team will model how and when societal transformations could to bring us back within the safe operating space for our species.
