A prominent topic at COP30, the Amazon’s ‘point of no return’ still requires further study

In a panel discussion held in the Blue Zone of the conference, a Brazilian IPCC researcher said that discussions on the subject must reach society through accessible communication without losing scientific rigor.

By Luciana Constantino, in Belém  |  Agência FAPESP – Brazilian science must engage more deeply in research related to the Amazon tipping point. This is necessary not only to understand the various factors involved in the process but also to expand the available evidence. David Lapola, coordinator of the Center for Meteorological and Climate Research Applied to Agriculture (CEPAGRI) at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), made this statement.

Lapola moderated the panel discussion “Extraordinary hypotheses require extraordinary evidence: Perspectives on research, education, and actions on the Amazon tipping point” in the Blue Zone at COP30 on November 13.

The session aimed to discuss current knowledge about the possibility of reaching a point of no return in the forest, addressing institutional and collective adaptation actions and the role of higher education in reducing uncertainties and implementing solutions.

Coming from the exact sciences, the term “tipping point” refers to a critical point at which an ecosystem can no longer regenerate and enters a different state of feedback. The term gained prominence with the publication of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000) by Malcolm Gladwell, who examined the issue from a social science perspective.

The term is part of the program at the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, in partnership with the Conrado Wessel Foundation (FCW) and the AmazonFACE research program, which is supported by FAPESP. Through field experiments, AmazonFACE studies how increased atmospheric CO₂ affects the Amazon Rainforest, its biodiversity, and ecosystem services.

“We need to learn to live better with uncertainty. Currently, we can’t categorically state that we’ve passed the point of no return in the Amazon. But that doesn’t make the issue any less serious or urgent. We need more Brazilian research and to simplify the way we communicate it, while maintaining scientific rigor and integrity. It’s also important to address points that aren’t currently included in this type of study, such as other knowledge, like that of traditional peoples, and the perspective of the humanities. Today we have evidence, but it isn’t extraordinary,” Lapola told Agência FAPESP shortly after the event held at the pavilion for Higher Education For Climate Action, of which UNICAMP is a part.

The researcher is one of 664 scientists from 111 countries who were invited by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to prepare the new report. The IPCC is an international body that assesses climate change-related science, and for the first time, its analysis will include the issue of the Amazon Rainforest’s point of no return. Lapola is the lead author of Chapter 8 of Working Group I, which covers “Abrupt changes, high-impact and low-probability events, and critical thresholds, including tipping points, in the Earth system.”

Scientific information

During the panel discussion, researchers Sabine Righetti, from the Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism (LABJOR) at UNICAMP, and Ana Paula Morales, from the Conrado Wessel Foundation, both founders of Agência Bori, presented the initial results of a study analyzing scientific articles on tipping points. They used a system that maps, organizes, and analyzes scientific information with the help of artificial intelligence to analyze 823 articles from the Web of Science.

After scanning the articles based on six questions, the researchers divided them into three groups: “yes” (178 articles), “no” (247 articles), and “maybe” (86 articles) for indication of a point of no return. The researchers concluded that more studies are needed to better understand the phenomenon and its complexity from a scientific perspective. Regarding communication, it is necessary to avoid binary discourse, such as “it’s over” or “it isn’t over,” and to explain the “range” of risk and uncertainty.

“While some studies set 25% deforestation as the point of no return, others mention ranges from 18% to 28%,” Morales explains.

The research was developed as part of the Cultural Atlas of Scientific Solutions, an initiative by Bori and the FCW that uses AI to map, organize, and analyze scientific information in order to support decision makers.

The pilot project to test the system was designed in meetings with FAPESP, which this year launched the Science at COP30 portal to bring together research and projects supported by the two foundations, aiming to expand knowledge about the climate.

“The general population doesn’t know what a tipping point is. This is scientific language. We want to pass on this scientific knowledge to society and, above all, to decision makers and public policy makers,” said Righetti, who is also an advisor to FAPESP’s Media Science coordination office.

Professor Marina Hirota of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) pointed out that the term “tipping point” varies depending on the scientist’s specialty.

“It’s important, for example, to promote interaction between those who make the models and those who are in the field. How do we train people to want to combine modeling and ecology? More than ever, we need more people talking, including outside academia, because otherwise, soon everything may start to be attributed as a point of no return,” says Hirota. She is developing a study with algorithmic representations of the Amazon to understand why certain portions of the forest are more vulnerable than others. This study links different disciplines, such as ecology and anthropology.

During the panel discussion on the knowledge of traditional peoples, Kaiana Kamaiurá, an indigenous woman from the Xingu, said that indigenous communities do not know what a tipping point is, “but they feel climate change on their skin.”

“Before, our people used the calendar to plan planting according to the changing stars. Today, if we use the stars, we lose the crop to drought or rain. We’ve been trying to adapt by planting at different times so as not to lose the crop. It may seem irrelevant in larger discussion forums, but this is our way of life. Climate change is already affecting our territories, with rivers drying up and fish disappearing and moving to other places. We’ve been trying to adapt in order to survive.”

Among other points, researcher Taís Gonzales highlighted the issue of environmental racism and how climate change impacts different populations differently.