Sensitive Intervention Points: How can economic butterfly wings can create a climate action tornado?

11 April 2019

The Oxford Martin Programme on the Post-Carbon Transition has proposed a new approach to designing climate interventions to take advantage of socio-economic and political tipping points. They seek real-world social, political and economic situations in which a small action can trigger rapid or dramatic change. Past examples suggest that policies that deliver a ‘shift or kick’ to the right system at the right ‘sensitive intervention point’ can significantly alter the climate-change trajectory.

Connie Hedegaard, Chair - KR Foundation, and former European Commissioner for Climate Action, Achim Steiner - Administrator of UNDP, James Cameron - Chairman of the Overseas Development Institute, Jules Kortenhorst, CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute, and Eric Beinhocker, Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, members of the programmes advisory board, commented on how they think this concept could impact climate interventions going forwards.