Accelerating Climate Disruption

The Strategy to Reduce, Remove and Repair

Decarbonisation Drawdown Solar Reflection Targets

Climate risks are accelerating faster than expected, with tipping points already triggered. Protecting people, ecosystems and vital regions requires urgent action to reduce emissions, remove carbon, and repair critical Earth systems.

Paper Summary

Climate tipping points are occurring faster than forecast, even below 1.5°C of warming.
Protecting people and ecosystems requires returning to the stable Holocene-like conditions of the last 9000 years.
A “three levers” strategy is needed: reduce emissions, remove carbon, and repair systems.
Zero emissions and drawdown alone are insufficient to prevent exceeding 1.5–2°C warming.
Temporary interventions, like albedo modification, may be needed to avoid irreversible tipping cascades.

Climate risks are accelerating, non-linear, and underestimated, with tipping points already occurring at current warming levels of around 1.5°C. To safeguard people, ecosystems, and vital regions, the climate must return to the relatively stable Holocene conditions of the last 9,000 years, when CO₂ levels remained below 280 ppm. Achieving this requires a “three levers” strategy: reducing emissions to zero at emergency speed, removing carbon from the atmosphere through large-scale drawdown, and urgently researching safe interventions to protect and repair critical systems. Even with zero emissions and drawdown, temporary measures like albedo modification may be necessary to prevent cascading tipping points and extreme climate impacts until other solutions fully take effect.

System-level change and tipping points are happening faster than forecast, with a number of crucial climate system elements already passed tipping at the current level of warming. Risks are cascading, non-linear and underestimated; prudent risk management requires consideration of the bad-to-worst-case-scenarios.

David Spratt

Research Director and Climate Analyst

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