As proceedings got under way at COP28 this week, major media outlets trumpeted a report released at the climate conference carrying a solemn warning that in an ideal world would have added impetus to negotiations, but in all likelihood won't. 
 
The report, published by Global Tipping Points (GTP), a multinational organisation supported by more than 200 researchers from almost 100 organisations in 26 countries, has warned that current global warming levels risk the world crossing five major “tipping points” that could lead to irreversible effects on natural systems. 
 
The GTP report says it has identified 26 natural phenomena that are in danger of sudden and irreversible change due to climate change, including ice sheets, rainforests, glaciers, ocean currents and coral reefs, all of which have serious negative implications for human lives and livelihoods.  
 
Researchers found that “the mass death of warm-water coral reefs is likely at current levels of warming, while four other processes – the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, disruption of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre circulation (rotating ocean currents), and abrupt thawing of permafrost regions was possible.” 

The implications are serious, because unlike other symptoms of global warming such as extreme weather events, which take place over longer periods of time, these processes can suddenly “flip” from one state to something else. As the report notes, “when a climatic system tips, sometimes with a sudden shock, it may permanently alter the way the planet works.” 

Professor Tim Lenton, from the Exeter Global Systems Institute in the United Kingdom, and the lead author of the report, told a press conference that it was a “tale of two future paths for humanity”. “We’ve basically left it too late for incremental action,” he told reporters. “Instead, we need to find and trigger what we’re calling some positive tipping points that accelerate action down an alternative pathway.”