Linking Social, Political, and Technical Feedbacks to Model Tipping Points in the Climate-Social System

Abstract:

Meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement will require a swift transformation in how energy is produced and used around the world. Rapid changes in social norms and political systems do occur but, with some exceptions, the mechanisms and dynamics that govern these transitions have not been formally linked to models of the energy or climate system to explore their implications for possible climate futures. Here we draw on specific theories of change dynamics from psychology, political science, and engineering to inform a simple coupled climate-social model that explores these issues. We use the model to investigate various social tipping-point narratives including the role of individual action, social norms, technical change, and the direct perception of climate change.

In this model, individuals both form opinions about climate policy and make personal decisions about reducing their carbon footprint. These opinions are affected by the distribution of opinions and actions within an individual’s social network and (potentially) by the direct observation of climate change via their experience of weather. At the collective level, climate policy is determined through the interaction of the population-wide opinion distribution with characteristics of the political system that make it more or less responsive to public pressure. The combination of individual and collective action interacts with the energy sector to determine emissions, which in turn affect the climate.

Coupled feedbacks both within and between the different modules gives rise to a range of dynamics that reveal the importance of looking holistically at the socio-politico-technical system that produces emissions. Using the model, we describe the set of conditions that must be met for these pathways to produce the rapid reductions in emissions necessary to stabilize the climate, and highlight important interactions and complementarities between different narratives of social change.