Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth’s climate by 2050

Summary

Achieving a rapid global decarbonization to stabilize the climate critically depends on activating contagious and fast-spreading processes of social and technological change within the next few years. Drawing on expert elicitation, an expert workshop, and a review of literature, which provides a comprehensive analysis on this topic, we propose concrete interventions to induce positive social tipping dynamics and a rapid global transformation to carbon-neutral societies. These social tipping interventions comprise removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation, building carbon-neutral cities, divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels, revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels, strengthening climate education and engagement, and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions information.

Information

Link to centre authors: Donges, Jonathan
Publication info: Otto, I.M., Donges, J.F., Cremades, R., Bhowmik, A., Hewitt, R.J. et.al. 2020. Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth’s climate by 2050. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jan 2020, 201900577; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900577117

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