Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth’s climate by 2050

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900577117
• Publication Date: 2020-01-21T22:55:14Z
• Authors: Ilona M. Otto; Jonathan F. Donges; Roger Cremades; Avit Bhowmik; Richard J. Hewitt; Wolfgang Lucht; Johan Rockström; Franziska Allerbe...; Mark McCaffrey; Sylvanus S. P. Doe; Alex Lenferna; Nerea Morán; Detlef P. van Vuuren; Hans Joachim Sche...
• Keywords: Social Dynamics; Earth system science; Runaway climate change

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