For years, the climate debate has been dominated by warnings of irreversible damage—melting ice sheets, rising seas, and dying coral reefs. The latest UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report reinforces that anxiety, predicting global temperatures will exceed the 1.5°C threshold within the next few years, overshooting the Paris Agreement's limit. UNEP warns there are “no good outcomes” if we remain above that mark, urging governments to minimize the overshoot's size and duration.
Yet a new study from the University of Exeter and The Earthshot Prize offers a counter-narrative: 51 solutions that could trigger “rapid and transformative change” to repair the planet within five years. Among these, five priority clusters—dubbed 'Earthshots'—stand out. The research, released after the hottest August on record and with a strong El Niño developing, provides what scientists call a “new, unifying agenda for positive action.”
“To reverse damage to our ecosystems before it’s too late, we need to unlock positive tipping points where progress builds on itself, costs fall with scale and recovery becomes self-propelling,” says Professor Tim Lenton, chair in climate change and earth system science at the University of Exeter.
Clean energy as a 'master cascade'
Renewable energy has already crossed positive tipping points in many markets, and it is the linchpin of the entire strategy. In the EU, solar and wind accounted for a record 30% of electricity last year, overtaking fossil fuels for the first time. EU solar generation hit 369 TWh, up 20% from the previous year. By 2030, solar alone could cut EU emissions by 154 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent annually—roughly the Netherlands' total 2023 emissions.
“Because clean power unlocks electric mobility, heat pumps, clean industry and clean air simultaneously, this is the highest-leverage transition across all five Earthshots,” the report states. The main bottlenecks are grid expansion, permitting reform, and the clean energy investment gap in the Global South. Africa, despite hosting 60% of the world's best solar resources, receives less than 2% of global clean energy investment. Yet countries like Morocco, South Africa, and Egypt are ramping up domestic solar manufacturing. Morocco has doubled production to about one gigawatt a year; South Africa maintains similar capacity; Egypt has gigawatt-scale projects coming online.
“A few years ago, local solar manufacturing was barely on the agenda anywhere in Africa,” Benjamin Clarke, policy director at the Africa Solar Industry Association, told AP. “It is now becoming a recognised pillar of industrial policy and green economic development.”
Clean cooking and household energy
Despite the clean energy boom, 2.1 billion people still rely on solid fuels for cooking, the largest source of indoor air pollution and a major contributor to black carbon (soot). The report notes that clean cooking is nearing a tipping point in several markets, as pay-as-you-go solar and clean cooking businesses scale across East and Southern Africa. In Latin America and parts of Asia, the transition to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is largely complete, bringing health benefits to millions.
Marine protected areas: self-reinforcing recovery
Well-designed and enforced ocean conservation has produced visible recovery of fish stocks and biodiversity. “As communities have reaped the benefits of marine conservation, protection areas have expanded and progress accelerated,” the report says. Examples include the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia. The High Seas Treaty, which came into force this year, is a historic milestone, enabling nations to establish a connected network of marine protected areas in international waters—covering nearly half the planet's surface. Once considered barren, the high seas are now recognized as a vast reservoir of biodiversity, crucial for climate regulation and carbon and water cycles.
However, destructive practices like bottom trawling, illegal fishing, plastic pollution, and ocean acidification remain threats. The treaty's voting mechanism prevents a single nation from blocking progress, a key step forward.
The study's authors argue that these positive tipping points offer a realistic path to recovery. As Professor Lenton puts it, “The recovery becomes self-propelling.” The challenge now is to accelerate these transitions before the negative tipping points become irreversible.
