This week began with the noonish Monday opening of a long-awaited and oversold event. Nope. Not Glastonbury. It was the 4-day Tipping Points conference at the University of Exeter, just a few miles up the A38 from Totnes. More than 500 participants bypassed the adjacent Starbucks to cram into The Forum for brunch. The first plenary, standing room only, introduced the theme of the week: Earth System Tipping Points and Risks. Lead-off speakers came from some of the most distinguished climate think tanks in the world. Noticeably absent: any U.S. reps. There were no speakers from NOAA, NASA, DOE, USDA, EPA, Goddard, Woods Hole, C2ES, WRI, UCS, RFF or USGCRP. Many career scientists at those places no longer had jobs. A notable exception: Rocky Mountain Institute, and more on them later.
The breakout rooms were tiny (capacities: 20-75) compared to what was required, but the doomer porn exceeded expectations: record heatwaves, wildfires, and permafrost collapse; boreal and tropical forest losses to tundra and savanna; Greenland and Antarctic calfing; 100 lost species per day (or was it 1000?); AMOC slowdown; tornadoes, monsoons and car soups; and, of course, economic modelling, evolutionary economics modelling and conceptual modelling.
You can dive deeper with the 2023 Exeter report: https://global-tipping-points.org/resources-gtp/
One of the Monday breakout rooms focused on a subject hogging many news headlines but in too many places is cast as the problem of illegal immigration instead of what it actually is, or is becoming, which is the dilemma of climate refugees, border barriers, and non-negotiable human survival instincts.
What are the impacts of tipping points on political, civil, economic, social, and cultural rights, including rights protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights? Dave-Inder Comar (Leiden University, Netherlands/ Just Atonement) and Elisa Morgera (University of Strathclyde, UK & UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights) struggled to parse that riddle.
On the “positive tipping points” side, presenters looked at a specific governance actor (e.g., the EU, the financial sector, a national or sub-national government, an NGO) or asked how an existing (but overworked and underfunded) institution like the UNFCCC should address tipping risks. That seemed relevant but not very illuminating. A poignant letter to the UNFCCC Prepcom last week signed by more than 200 Civil Society stakeholder groups was more targeted (switch to majority-based decision-making; end corporate capture; create accountability—with real penalties; protect freedom of expression and peaceful protest; combine efforts and open the doors at COPs) but still top-down in its approach. The Rocky Mountain Institute asked a better question: How do we adapt ourselves?
Monday 30 June 2025 15:00 – 17:00
Positive tipping points in energy efficiency and demand-side measures
Facilitators: Laurens Speelman (Principal, Rocky Mountain Institute), Yuki Numata (Senior Associate, Rocky Mountain Institute), Will Atkinson (Senior Associate, Rocky Mountain Institute)
Energy efficiency and demand-side measures are an oft-ignored but crucial component of the energy transition. Even though the contributions of energy efficiency to the global energy system are already immense and larger than many realize, measures often lack the classic ‘S-curve’ adoption and positive tipping points we see taking place on the supply-side. For example, replacing a fossil-fuel car with an E.V. provides large energy efficiency savings, but so do the increase the use of bikes and public transport to reduce the use of cars in the first place. Similarly powering our homes with solar panels and batteries is a good way to replace fossil fuels and increase energy efficiencies, but by better designing our buildings, factories and our neighborhoods with an eye for comfort, style, and function we can reduce the use of materials and energy we need, often at a fraction of the cost. These ‘end use’ efficiency measures keep load growth due to AI, data centers and electrification in check, they reduce power demand by ensuring flexibility in demand through time and space, they lower subsequent grid infrastructure and renewable build-out requirements, avoid the need to build out new fossil infrastructure and ensure more rapid phase-out, reduce the amount of materials that are needed for the energy transition, and provide numerous other economic, societal, health and environmental benefits. In this workshop we will highlight the importance of the oft-overlooked demand side of the energy transition, present latest analysis and framing on where progress is taking place and where it is not, showcase well-known systemic failures, and workshop how to address them with examples from practice.
The room capacity for that session? 20.
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