Integrated Assessments of Tipping Points - Societal Tipping Points

I came across a recently published paper by Kopp et.al. (2016) which effectively clarifies the multitude of terms used in characterizing tipping points and introduces integrated thinking to link interactions between tipping points and society. For all you human geographers out there, I aim to evaluate and summarize the author's findings and introduce the concept of societal tipping elements which will be explored in future posts.

The authors adopted the definition of climatic tipping point and tipping elements proposed by Lenton et.al. 2008 (mentioned in the last blog post) but identifies a glaring gap in the current discourse of tipping points. The authors identifies that the link between changes in the physical earth system and subsequent socio-economic consequences are either non-existent in scientific research or are often unclear. Socioeconomic tipping points are defined as the critical threshold at which the resilience of social systems (subjected to positive feedback loops) are breached and adaptative options/response exhibit nonlinear and exponential change. System inertia means that considerable change may already be committed but critical thresholds may be realized and passed at a later date. This will either have considerable socioeconomic impacts if certain climate tipping elements are triggered abruptly or may render certain consequences as irrelevant if realized change occur in millennial scale. The authors proposed 4 socioeconomic tipping elements which may be beneficial or detrimental to human wellbeing:

1. Technology - Technological diffusion and exponential growth in adaptive technology
2.  Civil Conflict - Failure to adapt lead to lower resilience and increased risks of civil conflict
3.  Migration - Climate-induced migration and forced displacement
4. Environmental Policy - long-term incremental policy changes interrupted by abrupt change to new policy state/Change in public opinions

The authors also suggested looking back at historically large scale economic tipping points/shocks in order to identify possibly climate-linked causes which may consist of socioeconomic/climatic tipping elements. Possible economic shocks may include banking crises, environmental disasters, sluggish growth rates, international warfare or political restructuring. These historical economic shocks may help date the onset of certain tipping points of tipping elements and may provide valuable information to determine trade-offs or linkages between different tipping elements (eg. Extreme weather/change of state in regional atmospheric circulation may threaten global financial systems or induce migration and ultimately induce international warfare).

Changing population of British Banks -
example of historical socioecnomic tipping point as
suggested by Bentley et.al 2014

All identified socioeconomic tipping elements may cause exponential growth rates in certain societal response when a critical threshold is breached and economic shocks are induced. Kopp et.al. 2016 introduces socioeconomic tipping elements as elements likely to be triggered by the breaching of certain climatic tipping points and suggests convincingly that these non-linear socioeconomic responses will be evidence of the trajectory in which human society might go in the future. While the date of such critical thresholds for these future socioeconomic tipping elements are difficult to determine, or even impossible to define, assessments which integrates climatic tipping elements with socioeconomic tipping elements and economic shocks are needed to adequately assess the costs/risks of climate change and identify possible reasons for action/inaction.