Lifestyle Trend: 6 sustainable travel tips to make your 2026 holiday more climate-friendly You Should Know

In 2025, the Earth reached the first of six progressively worse “climate tipping points”, which scientists say pose catastrophic risk to billions of people.

In addition to providing critical habitats for marine species (coral reefs are home to more than 25 per cent of all marine life), more than 500 million people or nearly 8 per cent of the world’s population depend on coral reefs directly in terms of coastal protection, fisheries, resources and tourism.

The Earth may have crossed a second tipping point as well: the melting of polar ice sheets. If that is true, it could trigger several metres of irreversible sea-level rise, affecting millions of people.

Additional tipping points include the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s major circulation systems, the retreat of mountain glaciers and the dieback of the Amazon forest.

The key point the report makes is this: every fraction of additional global warming increases the risk of triggering further tipping points. And that could cause incalculable damage to the Earth.

Before you despair, however, the same report offers ample reason for hope. It points out that while science shows ecosystems are approaching dangerous thresholds, science also highlights the “extraordinary potential of positive tipping points”.