Abstract
Abstract
Exceeding 1.5◦C warming is now unavoidable, which increases the risk for triggering climate tipping elements. Although ambitious mitigation and carbon dioxide removal might still reduce these risks, the extent of feasible risk reduction remains unclear. Here, we couple three models—the 3-machines energy transition model, the FaIR climate emulator, and the conceptual model for interacting tipping elements PyCascades—to simulate tipping probabilities of four climate tipping elements. With this model pipeline, we quantify the probability of triggering climate tipping elements under fastest-possible, yet technically feasible energy transitions that return to 1.0◦C warming. We find that, relative to following current policies, the mean probability of tipping at least one element could still be reduced from 5.8% to 0.1% over the next 100 years and by 78.0 percentage points over the next 50,000 years. Besides lowering tipping probabilities, starting fast energy transitions earlier may also delay tipping events by centuries, providing more adaptation time to adverse tipping impacts. Keeping long-term tipping probabilities below 0.5% would require limiting peak warming to 2.0◦C and returning 0.8◦C or lower in the long-term.