Professor Tim Lenton played a significant role in helping to initiate the global climate goal of staying below 1.5°C of warming. In his new book, he balances the case for greater urgency on the climate with suggestions for positive tipping points to help achieve successful policies. He emphasises that incremental change won’t work at this stage. We need to find positive tipping points and implement at speed to secure system change.
This review focuses on the second half of Lenton’s book, which is about transformations.
Beginning with revolutions
Starting with the suffragettes and with revolutionary technological changes of the past, Lenton considers protest as a “social contagion” in which people can follow what others have pioneered. Social tipping points are needed to change public perception of the issues. This process could be slow – or sometimes it is fast. My own examples for this would include the Portuguese revolution of October 1974 and the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989-1990.
Lenton notes an important caveat about change:
“The structure of social networks can also play a critical role in determining whether and how social tipping points happen.” (p.117)
Greta and others
Lenton introduces Greta Thunberg and the early days of Extinction Rebellion (XR). Whilst the latter sought to mobilise 3.5% of a population to achieve system change based on research, the issue that this research was not about changing democracies was missed.
Nevertheless, the XR tactics of inducing mass arrest drew attention to the climate emergency and were later adopted by groups such as Just Stop Oil and Christian Climate Action.
Lenton documents how public concern about climate change in the UK grew substantially in an 8-year period, as it did globally. He also notes many studies about how decarbonisation will lead to economic benefits over time. He points to the success of XR in obtaining a UK Climate Assembly but also how it was not followed by a ratcheting up of implementation of climate policies, illustrating the political obstacles which remain in place.
Winners and losers
A variety of winners and losers emerge from processes of change in society. Social and technological changes to deal with human-created climate change quickly may well displace those working in polluting sectors. It is a little surprising that Lenton’s concern on this topic for equity and social justice makes no reference to the idea of a Green New Deal and the substantial literature on this topic.
The problem of scaling up technologies
Lenton sees a positive reinforcement between social activism and technological innovation and spread. Discussion as to whether these are open to categorisation as “bottom-up” or “top-down” needs to incorporate the idea that elected persons can be social activists (top down) and how the visibility of innovation can be within a housing estate such as electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels, or the keen interest of some neighbours when someone they know has a heat pump installed (bottom up).
It is certainly true, as Lenton observes, that a global tipping point could be reached in the case of EVs. But this, and other changes, rely on Lenton’s optimism about how fast some technologies can or will be scaled up:
Replacing heavy goods vehicles, vehicles used in construction, airliners, shipping, and current methods of steel production, is all complicated by the decades-long life of many of the artefacts involved.
Advocating green hydrogen use when it accounts for only 1% of hydrogen we use at present requires exceptional government and industry commitment, as would greater use of ammonia for some purposes. Governments would have to set dates for industrial conversion in the sectors involved, after which conventional fossil fuel-powered technologies would cease to be legal.
More stranded assets
There is a financial barrier to be overcome. Financial institutions recognise the problem of stranded assets if technologies, like the physical assets of the fossil fuel corporations, become unusable long before the end of their design life. Will governments step up to challenge consequent delays in decarbonisations?
Positive tipping points can be reached
London has the best walking, cycling, and commuter use of public transport of any city in the UK. But this represents many decades of investment, including into an extensive underground railway network. Cheaper batteries are certainly pushing cleaner technologies like ebikes, escooters, and electric buses. The rapid collapse of coal use has contributed to substantial growth in renewable energy, with the possible positive tipping point of supplying more than half of UK electricity.
Resources for speeding up this process are being diverted to some extent towards a government-created renaissance of the nuclear industry destined to produce new nuclear power stations on eight coastal sites. Like pressure to open fossil fuel production in the North Sea at Jackdaw and Rosebank, this is strong countervailing pressure against positive tipping points in the energy sector and against achieving climate goals quickly. Yet, as Lenton observes, decarbonisation in the UK was twice the rate of all other major economies in the period 2010-2019. The momentum towards renewables could still prevail, subject to political will.
Some countries, such as Uruguay and Chile, have shown remarkable moves towards renewables and it is noteworthy that smaller countries seem to make such moves faster than the largest ones. China may be cited as a counter example – provided one is lenient about its large remaining coal sector.
We need to be technologically smart to maximise the potential positive tipping points of the sector: Lenton found that batteries used in EVs are removed when they drop below 80% of their full capacity. However, they can still be used for grid power storage until their capacity runs down to 30%. So, batteries are not just getting cheaper quickly but may have a longer life than originally envisaged. This contributes to a positive tipping point in battery storage and availability of electricity from fluctuating sources like wind and solar throughout the year.
Labour market transformation
The declining fossil fuel sector is still supporting 32 million jobs globally, both directly and in allied industries. However, the global renewables sector has already reached 36 million jobs, illustrating an exceptional rate of change in its comparatively short life.
If such considered application as battery reuse can be applied to changes in food, forestry, construction, and other industries critical to decarbonisation, then positive tipping points might be achieved. In the UK, this will require a positive transformation in the skills of the labour force. Neither the political nor educational landscape gives much grounds for optimism about this level of change in the UK of the present.
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