Advancing science, policy and action in tipping points research

Understanding tipping points is essential for governing systemic risks in the Earth system and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon future. Kopp and colleagues¹ raise important questions about the conceptual clarity and practical utility of tipping points research. While we welcome these questions and share their commitment to precise language and careful scientific communication, we worry that the negative orientation of their paper may lead some scholars to discard tipping points research before fully appreciating its value. We therefore highlight more positive conceptual and empirical insights relating to four topics raised by Kopp and colleagues.

First, tipping points theory has developed scientifically rigorous foundations since first being applied to climate science in 2008. Essential features — including system reorganization, thresholds, self-propelling feedbacks and nonlinear change — are now well established in the scientific literature². Like other complex concepts in sustainability science, the term’s use can diversify across various disciplines, and it can be misunderstood and misrepresented. This presents opportunities to study and improve how tipping points science is communicated, rather than grounds for dismissal. The concept has also been usefully applied across diverse disciplines and topics — including the acceleration of species’ extinction, groundwater resource depletion, the rise of asset uninsurability and the growing amount of space debris³. This ability of the tipping points approach to be tailored to suit different research topics can be viewed positively and can contribute to a broader and richer understanding of the concept.