University of Exeter and World Economic Forum 2022

In the short term, a tipping cascade could be triggered by an initial set of three super-leverage points:

• A tipping point is “very close” in road transport, with falling costs, government policies and better infrastructure increasingly making electric vehicles more attractive than petrol and diesel cars to both manufacturers and consumers. Zero-emission vehicle mandates are a particularly powerful policy for bringing forward this tipping point. By rapidly increasing the production of batteries, prompting technological and cost improvements, electric vehicles could support the transition to clean power, and the decarbonisation of other sectors that need cheap and clean electricity.
• Mandates that require the use of green ammonia (produced from hydrogen made with renewable energy) to make agricultural fertilisers could be a highly effective way to kick-start the growth of the hydrogen economy. This would not only replace fossil-fuels in fertiliser production; it would also bring down the costs of green ammonia and green hydrogen, enabling their use as fuels in shipping and steel production, and for energy storage.

• Alternative proteins (especially plant-based proteins) can reach a tipping point by beating animal-based proteins on cost, while at least matching them on taste and texture. Public procurement (for example in schools, hospitals and government departments) could be a powerful lever to increase uptake of these products, leading to reduced emissions from livestock farming and freeing up an estimated 400-800 million hectares of land, equivalent to 7-15% of global agricultural land today. This would reduce incentives for deforestation and leave more land available to support carbon storage and biodiversity.