Social Tipping points and living within just Earth system boundaries (Earth System Governance Student Blog)

A reflection on Tipping Points: How can they help us to live within global planetary boundaries?

Author Bio: Floris Neijnens is a PhD candidate at the Department of Environmental Sciences at Radboud University. His interests concern the theoretical assessment of biodiversity in relation to anthropogenic changes. His current work focuses on environmental change in relation to mosquitoes and their concomitant diseases.

photo credit

Global justice requires minimal exposure of the human population to Earth System changes. One of the key themes of the 2023 Radboud Conference on Earth System Governance was to better understand how global justice can be reached, and what societal changes are needed to achieve this. Oftentimes, a bleak picture is painted when it comes to actions that are needed from society to stop global warming and widespread ecosystem collapse. While scientists are sounding the alarm bells, this seems to have little impact on the public opinion and, therefore, policy makers. However, the concept of ‘social tipping points’ might provide a glimmer of hope, as I will explain in this blog.

I attended the semi-plenary session titled “Social Tipping Points and living within just Earth system boundaries”. I was attracted by the title, because I myself came across the topic of ‘tipping points’ quite a few times in my own studies. I am a natural scientist by training, and my master thesis was about tipping points in ecosystems. However, I was curious to get to know how this theory is being applied in the social sciences in the context of societal change.

What is a tipping point?

The session started with Dr. Joyeeta Gupta (University of Amsterdam) explaining what tipping points in the natural sciences entail, and what can be considered ‘safe and just boundaries’ for humanity. To summarize, a tipping point denotes the idea that small perturbations in a system can result in large, sudden, and often irreversible changes that could not be predicted based on the small perturbation. However, this small perturbation was preceded by many more perturbations, to which the system apparently did not respond. Somehow, the system is building up pressure, until this energy is suddenly released and a new equilibrium is reached. An example is the climate system, in which warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius will push the earth out of the stable, ‘Holocene’ state that it has been in for the past ten thousand years. However, the Earth system is more than only the climate; for example, consider nutrient cycling and the biosphere. Disruption of these subsystems may severely degrade people’s ability for agriculture and fisheries, causing potential loss of economic development and even famine. New research by Dr. Gupta and others points to several tipping point boundaries already being crossed even at 1.5 degrees Celsius of climate warming, which will impose significant harm upon 200M-500M people. A somber outloo.

And a social tipping point?

The second speaker, Dr. Timothy Lenton (University of Exeter), tried to apply the principles of natural tipping points to social tipping points. As a biophysical scientist, I was curious to see how this theory could be applied to social sciences as well. In a social tipping point, this concept of sudden, non-linear change in response to small, but persistent perturbations is applied to social systems. If we think again of climate change, social action regarding climate change mitigation measures can also be non-linear. As an example, consider electric cars that after a long time of development seem now to be adopted quickly, and in some countries already take up the majority of new cars being sold. Another example are solar panels, which are projected to be the cheapest source of energy in virtually all countries by 2030. Dr. Lenton concluded that even though tipping points in natural systems are associated with negative changes, social tipping points can also be beneficial to set in motion changes in society.

What can we do with all this?

The third speaker, Dr. Manjana Milkoreit (University of Oslo), built upon the talks by the previous speakers to explain how we could use social tipping points as a governance tool. Put more concretely, if social systems can tip to a new state, then policy makers could use this to move society to a new, more sustainable state. An example that was given was the ‘fossil fuel-oriented economy’, which in this analogy could be ‘socially tipped’ to an economy based on sustainable energy resources. The idea sounds appealing; the speed and ease with which these transitions supposedly go, give policy makers a powerful tool for a low cost-to-benefit ratio. However, Dr. Milkoreit also placed this rosy picture in perspective.

Would social tipping points always be controllable? Can we make sure that the outcome that we aim for is actually the outcome that we will end up with? And does it make sense to represent something as complex as a society as a system that has a stability basin and a tipping point?

Even though these same problems exist for natural systems, it is not uncommon for natural scientists to try to predict the system’s behavior with only a few equations. However, for social systems this is often not feasible, and it therefore remains to be seen how effective the application of tipping point theory to social systems will be in practice. 

Scale of adoption

The last part of the session consisted of an interactive discussion with the panelists and three discussants. An important topic of discussion was the scale of adoption by the technologies that were discussed. The point was raised that for many social changes, even though the ‘rate’ of adoption can be impressive, the ‘scale’ of adoption is often still low. So how do we actually get social change to scale? During the discussion, it was pointed out that a vast amount of literature has already been published regarding this topic over time. In my view, the concept of ‘social tipping points’ can certainly have an added value to this literature, provided that it can help us to determine how to better steer societal changes.

Just transformations

Another discussion topic was the concept of ‘just transformations’, and what can actually be defined as just. According to the panelists, sustainability transitions should also involve local communities. A case was made regarding Nigeria, a country in the global South, and the impact that green policies designed by the global North can have there. Such a country may lose as much as forty percent of its revenue when it makes the transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources. Therefore, many policies in the North that advocate the use of green products may actually lead to more poverty in the global South. The panelists then discussed whether or not this makes these policies unjust. After all, if the North doesn’t impose these green rules, all countries will eventually have to deal with the effects of climate change. The panelists had mixed opinions on this, and in my view, there is no simple answer to this discussion. However, I do think that collaboration on designing rules between the North and South for global green policies is key, as this might hopefully prevent potential unwanted side-effects. 

‘Resilience is fragile’

The slogan of this Earth System Governance conference was ‘Bridging Sciences and Societies for Sustainability Transformations’.

After this session, I realized that social tipping points may be able to play a crucial role in this, and that even though the literature is still developing, the discussion of this topic forces the ESG community to seriously look at their existing theories of social change. However, I also recognize that social tipping point theory is not a panacea, and caution should be taken to apply the concept to new social systems.

Not in the last place because in real-world situations, social tipping points may have unwanted side effects. Science on tipping points can only make an impact when there are clear pre-defined goals, and its implications are also supported by policy makers, local communities and citizens. After all, resilience is fragile!

About the Earth System Governance Project

The Earth System Governance Project is a global, interdisciplinary research network advancing knowledge at the interface between global environmental change and governance. The project aims to explore political solutions and novel, more effective governance systems to cope with global environmental change. You can connect with this network by becoming a research fellow, joining a taskforce or working group, or publishing with one of our publication outlets.