10 Risk Tipping Points (RTP)
These are different from climate system tipping points: Risk tipping points are crossed when impacts on us humans pass critical limits.
We are changing the entire risk landscape and losing our tools to manage risk.
Carrington
The risk tipping points are different from the climate tipping points the world is on the brink of, including the collapse of Amazon rainforest and the shutdown of a key Atlantic Ocean current. The climate tipping points are large-scale changes driven by human-caused global heating, while the risk tipping points are more directly connected to people’s lives via complex social and ecological systems.
Humanity is moving dangerously close to irreversible tipping points that would drastically damage our ability to cope with disasters, UN researchers have warned, including the withdrawal of home insurance from flood-hit areas and the drying up of the groundwater that is vital for ensuring food supplies.
These “risk tipping points” also include the loss of the mountain glaciers that are essential for water supplies in many parts of the world and accumulating space debris knocking out satellites that provide early warnings of extreme weather.
UNU-EHS
For Mountain glaciers, the risk tipping point is called “peak water” — it is when a glacier produces the maximum volume of water run-off due to melting. After this point, freshwater availability will steadily decline. Peak water has already passed or is expected to occur within the next 10 years for many of the small glaciers in Central Europe, western Canada or South America. In the Andes, where peak water has already passed for many glaciers, communities are now grappling with the impacts of unreliable water sources for drinking water and irrigation.
For Uninsurable future, the risk tipping point is reached when increasingly severe hazards such as storms, floods or fires drive up the costs of insurance until it is no longer accessible or affordable. Once insurance is no longer offered against certain risks, in certain areas or at a reasonable price, these areas are considered “uninsurable”. In Australia, for example, approximately 520,940 homes are predicted to be uninsurable by 2030, primarily due to increasing flood risk. Once this point is passed, people are left without an economic safety net when disasters strike, opening the door to cascading socioeconomic impacts in high-risk areas.
These diverse examples illustrate that risk tipping points extend beyond the single domains of climate, ecosystems, society or technology, but rather are inherently interconnected across them. They share similar root causes and drivers which are embedded in our behaviours and actions that increasingly put pressure on our systems until they change and stop supporting human lives and livelihoods. The impacts of these risk tipping points are not isolated to the places where tipping points are crossed but, through their interconnections with other systems, cascade through to other places around the world, influencing those to tip as well. For example, Unbearable heat threatens not only human lives and health, but also wildlife, which is increasing the risk of Accelerating extinctions, putting the ecosystems we depend on in peril.
More and more risk tipping points on the horizon
The six risk tipping points analysed in this report offer some key examples of the numerous risk tipping points we are approaching. If we look at the world as a whole, there are many more systems at risk that require our attention. Each system acts as a string in a safety net, keeping us from harm and supporting our societies. As the next system tips, another string is cut, increasing the overall pressure on the remaining systems to hold us up. Therefore, any attempt to reduce risk in these systems needs to acknowledge and understand these underlying interconnectivities. Actions that affect one system will likely have consequences on another, so we must avoid working in silos and instead look at the world as one connected system.