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Understanding the impact of global nature loss
TIPPING POINTS: WHY WE’RE ALL AFFECTED
When nature’s systems pass a tipping point, the consequences can be devastating. Sometimes this happens at a local level – like the collapse of fish populations leading to job losses and reduced incomes in coastal communities. But we also risk crossing global tipping points that could threaten all our food supplies, trigger widespread disasters like fires and flooding, and destabilize economies and societies everywhere.
5 tipping points with global significance
Early warning signs from monitoring and scientific evidence indicate that five global tipping points are fast approaching, each posing grave threats to humanity, Earth’s life-support systems, and societies everywhere.
The Amazon: a drying rainforest
Deforestation and climate change are causing reduced rainfall in the Amazon, which could lead to the region becoming unsuitable for tropical rainforest. This would have devastating consequences for people, biodiversity and the global climate. A tipping point could be on the horizon if just 20–25% of the Amazon rainforest is destroyed – and as much as 17% has been deforested already.
Coral reef die-off
In the Great Barrier Reef, rising sea temperatures coupled with ecosystem degradation have led to mass coral bleaching events in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024. As these events become more frequent, the Great Barrier Reef – along with a projected 70–90% of coral reefs globally – may no longer be able to function as an ecosystem. Over 1 billion people rely on these reefs for food, livelihoods and protection from storms.
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Melting ice sheets
Two massive ice sheets – in Greenland and the West Antarctic – are at risk of passing a tipping point where melting becomes irreversible. This would disrupt ocean circulation and cause sea levels to rise several metres, threatening more than 1 in 8 people globally who live in coastal areas less than 10m above sea level.
Atlantic ocean circulation
The collapse of the subpolar gyre, a circular current south of Greenland, would devastate marine ecosystems, disrupt other ocean currents and dramatically change global weather patterns – especially in Europe and North America, where summer heatwaves would increase and winters become more severe.
Permafrost thaw
Vast amounts of carbon and methane are locked up in the frozen soils of the Arctic. As more of these areas of permafrost thaw as a result of global warming, more greenhouse gases will be released into the atmosphere, further exacerbating the impacts of the climate crisis.
Diving deeper: how an ecosystem crosses a tipping point
Reefs are able to maintain their health and resilience as long as human-induced pressures - such as overfishing and pollution - remain below a certain level.
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However, if these pressures are sustained or increase over time, this weakens the resilience of reefs and makes them especially vulnerable to future stresses.
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Already in a weakened state, all it takes is continued pressure or a sudden shock to the ecosystem - such as changes in water temperatures due to the climate crisis - to tip the ecosystem over the edge, triggering a mass coral bleaching event.
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While some coral reefs can recover from bleaching events, others may never fully recover - even if pressures are alleviated. And for the reefs that do recover, they are much less likely to be able to do so the next time a bleaching event occurs again.
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