Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-8 (section)

=== 8.4.4 Social Tipping Points in the Context of Future Climate Change ===

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Climate change has the potential to trigger major, sudden social transformations, yet there are no clear linear relationships between the magnitude of climate change impacts and the social changes they induce ( [[#Steffen--2018|Steffen et al., 2018]] ). Evidence shows that major destabilising social transformations (e.g., forced migration) can occur in response to limited climate change impacts, even while major climate change impacts can be mitigated through the resilience of social, political and economic systems, and thus yield only minor social impacts.

In the context of climate change, ‘tipping points’ have been identified as critical thresholds at which a tiny perturbation can qualitatively alter the state or development of a system ( [[#Lenton--2008|Lenton et al., 2008]] ; [[#Lenton--2019|Lenton et al., 2019]] ). The concept of tipping points is usually associated with large-scale components of the climate system that could be pushed past an irretrievable threshold as a result of human-induced climate change ( [[#Lenton--2008|Lenton et al., 2008]] ), such as the deterioration of Antarctic ice sheets ( [[#Pattyn--2020|Pattyn and Morlighem, 2020]] ). Social tipping points refer to similar mechanisms of destabilisation resulting from impacts of climate change on human societies at multiple scales and the societal context conditions in which these impacts occur. They are reached when climate change impacts force destabilising social transformations from one state to another ( [[#Lenton--2019|Lenton et al., 2019]] ): from sporadic losses due to climate change to chronic losses and impoverishment, from peace to violence, from a democracy to an authoritarian regime, from adequate food provisioning to famine, or into forced migration. For example, small variations in the rainfall or temperature can jeopardise livelihoods that are dependent upon subsistence agriculture, which can lead to migration or tensions around resources (see Figure 8.11). Social tipping points can also occur when intangible elements that ensure the survival of individuals and communities are eroded or removed. This is the case, for example, when the social fabric of a community falls apart. The Millennium drought in Australia led to higher rates of male suicide, especially among farmers, and droughts in Ghana led to similar outcome when people were forced to drink from the same water source as their animals, which they perceived as robbing them off their human dignity ( [[#Bryant--2015|Bryant and Garnham, 2015]] ; [[#Tschakert--2019|Tschakert et al., 2019]] ).

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'''Figure 8.11 |''' '''A social tipping point is reached when climate impacts push a society towards a state of instability.''' Those climate impacts are typically aggravated by economic, social and political stressors that reduce adaptive capacity and overwhelm its resilience. Once a social tipping point is reached, a society may experience mutually reinforcing states of economic, social and political instability, leading to cascading disruptions such as livelihood insecurity, migration and displacement, food insecurity, impoverishment, civil and political conflict, and change of political regimes.

In socio-ecological systems, tipping points occur when a (small quantitative) change inevitably triggers a nonlinear change in the corresponding social component of the socio-ecological systems, driven by a self-reinforcing positive feedback mechanism, that inevitably and often irreversibly leads to a qualitatively different state of the social system ( [[#Milkoreit--2018|Milkoreit et al., 2018]] ).

In recent years, significant research efforts have been made to identify early warning signals for social tipping points ( [[#Barrett--2014|Barrett and Dannenberg, 2014]] ; [[#Bentley--2014|Bentley et al., 2014]] ; [[#Lenton--2019|Lenton et al., 2019]] ). While some identify early warning signals through time series ( [[#Scheffer--2012|Scheffer et al., 2012]] ), others see them in interaction networks and individual thresholds ( [[#Barrett--2014|Barrett and Dannenberg, 2014]] ; [[#McLeman--2018|McLeman, 2018]] ). Empirical research conducted in a transboundary contentious region—the Jordan river valley—showed that there were significant local and regional differences in the identification of social tipping points ( [[#Rodriguez%20Lopez--2019|Rodriguez Lopez et al., 2019]] ).

Empirical evidence shows that social tipping points can be triggered long before climate tipping points are reached. For example, recent research in West Africa shows that migration decisions are often based on the perceptions of environmental changes by local populations rather than on the actual observed changes ( [[#De%20Longueville--2020|De Longueville et al., 2020]] ). The migration of some members of a community can also trigger the migration of the whole group, as the migration of some members can have a strong impact on the community ( [[#Gemenne--2017|Gemenne and Blocher, 2017]] ). In other contexts, the expectation of a climate impact can trigger social or political shifts: for example, the expectation of lower snow cover levers can reduce or stop investments in ski resorts. Some planned relocations of populations are already underway in anticipation of future climate impacts ( [[#de%20Sherbinin--2011|de Sherbinin et al., 2011]] ), while the government of Indonesia decided in 2019 to move its capital city, Jakarta, in anticipation of future floods.

Shifting livelihoods is a typical adaptation strategy but can also reflect a social tipping point if this shift affects the community as a whole. Therefore, social tipping points should not be confused with the carrying capacity of a community. While the carrying capacity of a community is a fixed, predetermined limit, social tipping points are dynamic and constantly evolving under the influence of different social and political factors, such as solidarity networks or governance mechanisms. The carrying capacity of a community can evolve over time, but remains a static concept, unlike social tipping points. Social tipping points have also been applied to adaptation, through the concept of adaptation tipping points, which indicate how much pressure a socio-environmental system is able to absorb ( [[#Ahmed--2018|Ahmed et al., 2018]] ). Beyond the adaptation tipping point, the efficiency of adaptation responses will be limited, and can even transform into maladaptive options.

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