The coral reefs face widespread death and will be lost if measures are not taken to reverse the global warmingwarns new report Global Tipping Points 2025 (Points of no return) released this Monday.
The document – prepared by 160 scientists and led by the British University of Exeter, with contributions from the Institute for Research on the Potsdam Climate Impact (PIK) and 85 other institutions – exposes the growing risks detected in Earth’s systems.
The massive disappearance of warm water coral reefs is the first ‘point of no return’ that the planet will reach if measures are not taken.
But, in addition, the text includes other “increasing risks” facing Earth’s systems, such as the melting of glaciers and small ice fields to the slowdown of ocean currents, the melting of polar ice sheets and the pressure on tropical forests.
Risks and consequences
The risks, consequences and governance challenges around these tipping points range from local-level impacts, such as glaciers, to global-scale consequences, such as large ocean circulations, polar ice sheets and the Amazon rainforest.
Current global warming, at around 1.3–1.4 degrees, already exceeds the estimated ‘point of no return’ threshold for warm-water coral reefs.
According to the text, several critical elements of the Earth system such as the terrestrial permafrost, the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica and the North Atlantic subpolar gyre could reach their respective points of no return with a temperature increase of just over 1.5 degrees.
“We have more and more evidence of points of no return in all these different systems”indicated the PIK scientist Sina Lorianiwhile noting that there is a growing risk of triggering feedback loops that amplify and accelerate changes in the Earth system.
According to the document, the widespread collapse of the Amazon rainforest due to the stress of climate change and deforestation could be triggered at a lower temperature than previously thought, with the lower limit of the estimated range now standing at 1.5 degrees, highlighting the need for “urgent measures.”
The enormous impact of transferring points
Detailed research on Áakʼw Tʼáak Sítʼ, also called Mendenhall Glacier, near Juneau, Alaska, United States, highlights the “substantial risks” of passing points of no return even in relatively small-scale systems, such as glaciers and smaller ice fields.
In Alaska, glacial lake outburst flash floods from the glacier broke consecutive records in 2023, 2024 and 2025, causing tens of millions of dollars in damage and presenting serious challenges to the region.
For Donovan Dennis, PIK scientist and leader of the case study, this situation “underlines the enormous impact that crossing points of no return will have on cities, local communities and indigenous peoples around the world, as they will be the ones to bear the burden of adapting to continued environmental change.”
Positive aspects identified
In addition to the warnings, the authors argue that the “abrupt and irreversible” nature of these points implies “a different type of threat to other environmental challenges” and that current policies are not adequate to address them.
They have also seen “positive changes” with the adoption of solar photovoltaic panels, wind energy globally, electric vehicles, battery storage and heat pumps in leading markets.
The executive director of Global Carbon Project and chief researcher at the CSIRO Climate Science Center in Canberra (Australia), Pep Canadellnoted that the new report “makes clear that each year there is an increase in the scope and magnitude of the negative impacts of climate change, that each year there are more people experiencing longer and more diverse impacts and that each year those impacts are accelerating.”