File:Exeter Report-Global Systems Institute (2026) Re How to trigger 'Cascade of Progress'.png

University of Exeter

Global Systems Institute

September 10, 2026

• https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/institutes/gsi/

Via Exeter Online

Clean energy as a master cascade: As solar and wind have become cheaper, the economics of electric transport, clean buildings, industry and cleaner air have improved. Solar power costs have fallen around 90% in the past decade, and as deployment grows, manufacturing costs fall. Falling costs have unlocked further deployment, which has driven costs lower still, attracting more investment and improving the technology. Today, solar is the cheapest source of electricity in most of the world.

More:

Landmark new research from The Earthshot Prize and the University of Exeter’s Green Futures Solutions team, published today, reveals 51 environmental solutions that can trigger rapid and transformative change to repair our planet within the next five years. After a northern summer of extreme heat and fire, and as the world prepares for an unprecedented El Nino, the research provides a new, unifying agenda for positive action.

Positive Tipping Points: Accelerating system change to repair our planet, furthers Professor Tim Lenton’s pioneering research, by expanding positive tipping point science to all five Earthshots: Protect and Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build a Waste-Free World, and Fix Our Climate. The Earthshot Prize will use the findings to identify solutions with the potential to trigger rapid systems change.

The planet is fast approaching negative tipping points, such as the dieback of Amazon rainforest, where catastrophic harm to ecosystems becomes irreversible. Yet, the same science provides an opportunity with positive tipping points, a threshold where progress can become rapid and self-reinforcing. For example, when adoption lowers costs, success attracts further investment and new policy spreads to other geographies, creating a cascade effect of progress....

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GreenPolicy360:

A 'Cascade of Progress' would be welcome, but the retrogressive years of the United States presidential administration of Donald Trump have delivered a deep setback...

On the clean energy front, the retro policies are extensive and history will tell of the full costs. We are, scientifically, measuring and monitoring, the realities...

Our work on Environmental full-cost accounting speaks of these deeper costs, as does a retrogressive record being compiled by U.S. Trump years in office...

And, as with all great movements, the accomplishments of The Modern Environmental Movement, will face adversarial forces...

The results of our era and our endeavors, forward-looking, contemplative, discerning, are yet to seen for the progress being attempted.

What can be said, here in 2026, is that this is time to do our best with positive intent and with shared Green Best Practices

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