Eight out of ten cars sold in Norway are pure electric cars. The automotive sector “crashed” ten years ago, says Tim Lenton, professor of earth system science at the University of Exeter. The Norwegian pop group a-ha, which promoted electromobility in the late 1980s with a Fiat Panda converted into an electric car, is said to have contributed to this. A few years later, electric cars were exempt from tolls and could park for free. The vehicles quickly no longer only attracted the interest of early adopters; the shift to electrified private transport has become irreversible.
Inflection points: sudden and irreversible
The Norwegian example shows that change is reinforced after a certain point and a system can tip over – that is, move from one state to another, says Tim Lenton. A good illustration of this is the chair, which, if you rock back, eventually reaches the point where it inevitably tips over and you suddenly find yourself on the floor, in a different state.
“It’s a rapid, self-accelerating change that is very difficult to reverse,” says Lenton, who has also studied classic climate tipping points for years. Now, the question of how the social system could collapse is the focus of his investigation and, with it, the structural conditions necessary for change.
Framework conditions for change
These would differ from technology to technology, says the climate researcher. Electric cars, for example, would have to have more power, sufficient range and a high level of comfort to replace diesel or gasoline cars. “And they need to be price competitive, which they already are when you look at total cost of ownership.”
Tim Lenton highlights that political framework conditions have the greatest influence. For example, if the policy prohibits the future sale of diesel and gasoline vehicles, it forces the automobile industry to innovate and the price drops. Regulations on CO2 emissions limits for cars at EU level have had similar effects in recent decades. “They created feedback effects and increased the power of innovation.”
The S curve of innovation
Politics is an important precursor to social turning points, especially in areas that are politically regulated, such as the energy sector. It can also specifically promote innovation by providing research funding. “The good news is that all the technologies we talk about now are mature and very competitive thanks to decades of research and development.”
The establishment of new technologies generally follows an S curve: their usage is low for a long period until they finally reach a turning point and experience rapid growth. The exact moment at which this point is reached varies not only depending on the technology, but also from country to country. In a country like Norway, which has been experimenting with electromobility for years, the threshold of one to two percent market share was lower than in other countries, says Tim Lenton. In China, he would place the threshold in the automotive sector at around 5% market share.
Six Central Inflection Points
As early as 2020, a study identified social tipping point interventions that could trigger feedback mechanisms and lead to a system-wide “turnaround.” These include eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, building carbon-neutral cities or withdrawing capital from fossil fuel assets.
In addition to these immediate changes in behavior, a change in the system of norms and values can also lead to the collapse of the system. Because social norms influence social actions. Tim Lenton is also convinced of this. There would already be signs of this “change in values in our minds”. For example, interest in vegetarian and vegan diets is increasing.
Climate innovations from the Global South
While leapfrog theory assumes that innovations from the global North will also drive decarbonization in the global South, Tim Lenton is primarily interested in innovations coming from the global South itself. “There are a number of start-ups, especially in East Africa, that produce electric motorcycles with replaceable batteries”, says the researcher, who was invited to speak this week at the EZA: Climate Justice conference.
If the battery is empty, it will be exchanged for a charged one at a battery swap station. This means more profit for taxi drivers who use these electric motorcycles because electricity is cheaper than gasoline or diesel. The same applies to electric rickshaws, which increasingly shape urban traffic in India.
Lenton describes these developments as a “self-made electrical revolution” and as an issue of global climate justice. Countries in the global South, in particular, are heavily dependent on the import of fossil fuels, which has a negative impact on their trade balance. The shift to electromobility would not eliminate the South’s debt, but it could be an important step in the right direction; a positive inflection point, so to speak.