Act now to prevent climate change reaching point of no return, experts warn

The research, carried out by the Universities of Exeter, Zurich, Stanford and Chicago found that an uncertain future tipping point should increase the amount we pay now to limit climate change.

Depending on the economic impacts of an abrupt change in climate and how quickly this is felt, the cost of carbon emitted now increases by 50 – 200%.

Setting a correspondingly high carbon tax would trigger a reduction in carbon emissions that delays the tipping point.

The researchers developed a model to investigate how the uncertainty surrounding tipping points should influence climate policy.

Based on expert input, the likelihood that human activities will push the climate system past a tipping point increases from 2.5% in 2050 to nearly 50% in 2200 in their baseline scenario.

Professor Tim Lenton from the University of Exeter said: “Our results support recent suggestions that the costs of carbon emissions used to inform policy are being underestimated.

“We are calling on policy makers to respond to the prospect of triggering future climate tipping points by applying the brakes now and putting a high price on carbon emissions before it is too late.

“The additional carbon tax that our model recommends can be thought of as an insurance premium levied on society to delay irreversible damages in the future”.

‘Stochastic integrated assessment of climate tipping points indicates the need for strict climate policy’ by Thomas S. Lontzek, Yongyang Cai, Kenneth L. Judd and Timothy M. Lenton was published in the journal Nature Climate Change.