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NEU Senior Regional Support Officer
Humanity is looking extinction in the eye
As we pass global temperature tipping points, we face widespread ecosystem collapse and the development of self-sustaining destructive feedback loops, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL
A major coral bleaching event at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, 2016 [Oregon State University/CC]

LAST week a team of scientists published their review of the evidence that has accumulated in the past few years about the properties and dangers of climate tipping points.

They compared this evidence with the 1.5-2°C rise in global temperature that will occur under the Paris Agreement. They found that we may still reach several climate tipping points or maybe have already crossed them.

A ”tipping point” is when a variable in a system, such as the global temperature in our climate, crosses a threshold which causes feedback.

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