Abstract
Accelerated technological progress and policy implementations are required to deliver carbon emissions reductions at rates sufficiently fast to avoid crossing dangerous tipping points in the Earth’s climate system. I will discuss the potential of social tipping dynamics that can activate contagious processes of rapidly spreading technologies, behaviors, social norms, and structural reorganization within their functional domains. I will also talk about the role of social networks and small groups in tipping the dominant norms, behaviors, and technologies. The findings will be discussed in the context of conflicting interests and polarization that our societies experience currently.
Speaker
Ilona M. Otto is a key scholar in Europe for understanding the relationship between climate tipping points and social tipping points. She holds the Professorship in Societal Impacts of Climate Change at the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz. She leads a research group focusing on Social Complexity and System Transformation. The group’s ambition is to use complex science theory and novel research methods to analyse social dynamic processes and interventions that are likely to spark rapid social changes necessary to radically transform the interactions of human societies with nature and ecosystem services in the next 30 years. Previoulsy, Otto spent 10 years at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.