GOVERNANCE
We urgently need new types of governance to cope with the threat posed by Earth system tipping points.
Key Messages
Earth system tipping points pose distinct and urgent governance needs
- With global warming soon overshooting 1.5°C, developing and implementing effective governance strategies to prevent Earth system tipping points is increasingly urgent and important.
- Tipping points present distinct governance challenges compared to other aspects of climate change or environmental decline, requiring both governance innovations and reforms of existing institutions.
- Precaution, anticipatory governance and systemic risk governance are key approaches for addressing Earth system tipping points.
- Amid deepening geopolitical fragmentation and the weakening of multilateralism, governance responses to Earth system tipping points must focus on fostering a flexible, multi-scale agenda capable of advancing under challenging political conditions.
Preventing Earth system tipping points requires a change in strategy
- The risk of activating Earth system tipping processes exists at current levels of global warming and increases with every 0.1°C and every year of overshooting the globally agreed goal of 1.5°C.
- Current climate mitigation measures are not sufficient to prevent tipping events; they need to be accelerated and coupled with measures addressing non-climate drivers, such as deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
- Preventing tipping points requires ‘frontloaded’ mitigation pathways that minimise peak global temperature, the duration of the overshoot period above 1.5°C and the return time below 1.5°C with immediate, comprehensive transition away from fossil fuels.
- Sustainable carbon dioxide removal approaches need to be rapidly scaled up to help return the global mean temperature to and then below 1.5°C.
The impacts of Earth system tipping points demand governance action
- Societies need governance efforts that anticipate and prepare for the specific impacts of Earth system tipping points before tipping points are crossed – these impacts differ from the observed and expected impacts of other aspects of climate change.
- Governance should assess and reduce vulnerability to tipping point impacts, build resilience and include tipping point impacts in climate adaptation policy and planning and related policy domains.
- Governments, intergovernmental organisations, economic and financial actors should integrate Earth system tipping points in risk assessments across scales.
- Justice – intragenerational, intergenerational and interspecies – must be at the centre of Earth system tipping point impact governance.
Earth system tipping points are a human rights issue
- Preventing Earth system tipping points and addressing their impacts are essential for the global protection of fundamental human rights.
- State and non-state actors must be adequately informed about the human rights implications of transgressing Earth system tipping points and governance responses to them.
- Tipping points science should be used to strengthen future litigation efforts related to human rights.
- We recommend convening a multistakeholder working group on human rights and Earth system tipping points, including the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, scientific experts, Indigenous Peoples and civil society organisations.
Multiple actors are needed to govern Earth system tipping point risks
- Earth system tipping points require engagement not only from national governments and international bodies, but also municipal, regional, corporate and community actors, each of whom have particular responsibilities, capacities and opportunities to influence outcomes.
- Diverse strategies are needed to address Earth system tipping points—ranging from law and policymaking to advocacy, institutional reform and storytelling—drawing on the varied capacities, mandates and influence of actors operating across multiple scales and domains.
- In this early agenda-setting phase of Earth system tipping point governance, actors such as international organisations, science communicators and advocacy groups have a critical role to play in raising awareness, shaping narratives and mobilising political will.
- Addressing Earth system tipping points requires building trust and fostering cooperation and coordination among state and non-state actors across multiple levels of governance.
If leaders act now, the story changes
What the Experts Say
Sandrine Dixson-Decleve
Earth4All and Co-President, The Club of Rome
Simon Willcock
Bangor University, UK and Rothamsted Research, UK
Tipping Element Monitoring and Response Facilities Concept Note
Effective governance for Earth system tipping points requires new science-to-action institutions that foster agile, inclusive, and anticipatory governance in interaction between science, policy and society. In the Global Tipping Points Report 2025, we propose a new type of institution to address this need: a global network of Tipping Element Monitoring and Response Facilities (TEMRFs). Each TEMRF would focus on a distinct Earth system tipping element, e.g., the Amazon rainforest, the warm-water coral reefs, or the Atlantic overturning circulation. This concept note provides the rationale for TEMRFs and describes their functions and potential institutional design.
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