Report by the University of Exeter, Global Tipping Points October 2025
This analysis draws upon the comprehensive findings of the Global Tipping Points Report 2025, detailing the escalating risks presented by Earth system destabilization and emphasizing the necessity of triggering positive tipping points to achieve urgent climate action. The world is rapidly approaching and likely to overshoot 1.5°C of global warming, placing humanity in a danger zone where multiple climate tipping points pose potentially catastrophic risks to billions of people.
Damaging and irreversible climate tipping points are already being crossed. Preventing irreversible harm to the climate system is presented as a legal imperative. To minimize the magnitude and duration of temperature overshoot above 1.5°C, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must be halved by 2030 compared to 2010 levels, and reach net zero by 2050.
Key takeaways: Status of Earth System Tipping Points
- The stability of the Earth system is threatened by critical thresholds that, when crossed, result in nonlinear and cascading consequences. The likelihood of triggering several major tipping points increases with every additional 0.1°C of global warming.
- While several systems are approaching tipping points, the warm-water coral reef system exemplifies the urgency of impacts, as the central estimate of its thermal tipping point (1.2°C global warming) has already been exceeded. Global warming has reached approximately 1.4°C. This has contributed to the fourth and most extensive recorded global coral bleaching event (2023–2025), impacting over 80% of reefs worldwide.
- The prognosis for warm-water coral reefs is severe: Stabilizing warming at the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C limit, even without overshoot, makes functional loss virtually certain (>99% probability), given that the upper threshold for the coral reef thermal tipping point is also estimated at 1.5°C.
- To retain functional coral reefs at a meaningful scale, global mean warming must return below 1.2°C with a minimal overshoot period, and eventually stabilize toward 1.0°C. Urgent efforts to minimize non-climatic stressors, such as pollution and overfishing, are crucial to temporarily support reef resilience under these temperatures.
Significant future emissions are anticipated
Minimizing the risk of activating further damaging tipping points requires accelerating mitigation efforts. The window for preventing some irreversible tipping points is rapidly closing.
1. Accelerating mitigation through Positive Tipping Points (PTPs): Achieving the necessary acceleration in decarbonization requires triggering PTPs, self-amplifying shifts in technologies, behaviors, and systems toward zero emissions. PTPs have already been crossed in the adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power globally, and in electric vehicles (EVs), battery storage, and heat pumps in leading markets.
2. Strategic policy for acceleration: The most effective strategies for triggering PTPs, especially in the energy system, are policy mandates designed to phase in clean technologies and phase out fossil fuels (e.g., bans on the sale of diesel/petrol cars). Coordinated, cross-sectoral action at "super-leverage points" can unleash cascading positive change, reinforcing transition benefits across multiple sectors simultaneously e.g., linking power, heating, and transport decarbonization efforts.
3. Required decarbonization: Minimizing tipping risks demands "frontloaded" mitigation pathways that rapidly reduce peak global temperature. This requires halving GHG emissions by 2030 (compared to 2010 levels), reaching net zero by 2050, and deploying rapid scaling of sustainable carbon removal capacities to return temperatures below 1.5°C.
This summary is based on extracts from the final report authored by Lenton, T. M., Milkoreit, M., Willcock, S., Abrams, J.F., Armstrong McKay, D.I., Buxton, J.E., Donges, J.F., Loriani, S., Wunderling, N., Alkemade, F., Barrett, M., Constantino, S., Powell, T., Smith, S.R., Boulton, C. A., Pinho, P., Dijkstra, H.A. Pearce-Kelly, P., Roman Cuesta, R.M., Dennis, D. The full version can be found here.
Photo credit: Joan Li and NEOM on Unsplash and edited through the help of artificial intelligence.
See below for our coverage on similar topics:
- Climate Tipping Points - An Unfolding Catastrophe? | Planetary Security Initiative
- The security blind spot: Cascading climate impacts and tipping points threaten national security | Planetary Security Initiative
- Earth System Tipping Points Are a Threat to Europe – How to Get Prepared? | Planetary Security Initiative