The consequences of climate tipping points are almost too big to imagine. The thought that, over the course of a few decades, the Amazon rainforest could become a savannah, or coral reefs could become extinct, seems like science fiction. Given how many people have been lulled into a false sense of control over the environment, it is perhaps even harder to grasp that incremental changes in temperature and rainfall irreversibly reorganize planetary-scale systems.

But data from ever-more advanced Earth system models indicate that these tipping points are fast approaching or may, in the case of coral reefs and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, already be in the rear-view mirror. And it is not at all clear that climate interventions could make the problem go away.

Institutions at all levels are not prepared to manage such possibilities. The current processes for synthesizing climate science into policy recommendations are stronger for global-scale changes than they are for the local insights that a city planner in Jakarta, a finance minister in Brazil, or a farmer in the Sahel needs. That is because these processes are better equipped to highlight the areas of agreement than they are to map the terrain of uncertainty.

Most infrastructure plans, policy frameworks, financial markets, and risk management strategies do not recognize the possibility of crossing climate tipping points, which are foreseeable but not predictable. This makes it difficult to weigh investments in immediate needs against the future effects of such spending.

The lack of capacity to respond to climate tipping points must be addressed now. Reducing the risk of crossing them poses a global collective-action problem, especially because they cover different domains. For example, many factors contribute to coral reef collapse, including global warming, ocean acidification, ecosystem loss, pollution runoff and overfishing. And yet climate science, biodiversity research, pollution monitoring, and resource management are consigned to separate silos, leaving nobody responsible for monitoring and mitigating tipping dynamics.

Building the institutional architecture for tipping-point governance comes down to three essential tasks. The first is continuous tracking of tipping dynamics – including human and social dimensions – and the development of a shared, actionable understanding of them. The second is increased recognition of the risks, which means ensuring that they are central considerations in government and business decision-making. Lastly, it is important to establish the capacity for timely, coordinated response across policy domains, sectors, and scales.

In a concept note for the Global Tipping Points Report 2025, we show how these capacities can be developed through regional Tipping Element Monitoring and Response Facilities ( TEMRFs ) which would share information and coordinate action as needed. Each TEMRF would focus on a specific tipping element and be regionally grounded – but globally networked. These facilities could weave together existing regional frameworks for cooperation, including networks of scientists, policymakers, city governments, Indigenous peoples and diplomats.

TEMRFs can learn from other initiatives that have developed new ways of synthesizing climate science for decision-makers, such as the World Climate Research Programme’s My Climate Risk Lighthouse Activity, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, the Science Panels for the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Borneo, and the Amazon Regional Observatory. These programs have demonstrated how to represent systemic risks in a tangible way that is tailored to different stakeholders. TEMRFs should follow their example by aggregating information from a wide range of sources – such as quantitative models, satellite data, and indigenous knowledge – and creating a comprehensive picture for various audiences.

Political and business leaders, with their focus on election cycles and quarterly earnings, need contextual frameworks that recognize and incorporate the risks of crossing climate tipping points. To that end, TEMRFs will have to consider decades-long time horizons and ensure that tipping elements are a part of policy frameworks for infrastructure planning, financial regulation, and development policy. Tough trade-offs – between short-term growth and long-term resilience, and between preserving the status quo and adapting to new realities – will be unavoidable.

Lastly, TEMRFs must organize responses at a scale and pace that matches the urgency of the situation. The Amazon rainforest spans nine countries, and ocean currents connect continents; both have tipping dynamics with local to global impacts unfolding over complicated time scales. This requires institutions capable of coordinating action across jurisdictions, bridging the public and private sectors, and responding flexibly to changing conditions.

Regional bodies are well positioned to achieve these objectives because they are close enough to see the effects of crossing tipping points, and large enough to devise and implement coordinated cross-border measures. Organizations like the Nordic Council of Ministers or the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization could play important roles in developing this architecture, drawing on their experience of navigating evolving concerns with incomplete mandates. Regional development banks and alliances around shared interests such as the International Coral Reef Initiative can also be good starting points.

There is a deeper imperative for strengthening regional capacities. Global efforts often falter under the weight of profound inequities and lingering mistrust – both between and within countries – about whose interests are really being served. In this context, Earth system tipping points can easily be framed and perceived as yet another agenda pushed from the Global North to discipline development elsewhere. TEMRFs chart a different course: creating space for regions to claim their voice, cultivate their own scientific capabilities and grounded insights, and work with stakeholders across scales to shape development pathways rooted in their own geographies and the Earth systems that sustain them.

TEMRFs offer a way to connect global ambition with regional realities – on terms defined by those who live them.

Jessica Seddon is a co-founder of The Institutional Architecture Lab and a senior lecturer and director of the Deitz Family Initiative on Environment and Global Affairs at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs; and Manjana Milkoreit is co-lead author of the governance section of the Global Tipping Points Report 2025 and a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center and the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute.

Copyright: Project Syndicate