Welcome to Episode 2 of the Positive Tipping Points Special! A 7-episode special series on the road to COP30 in Belem, with guest host Liz Courtney. 

In this episode we meet Professor Carlos Nobre of the University of São Paulo,  Co-Chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon, and Professor Peter Cox, CBE Director of the Global Systems Institute University of Exeter. 

In this episode we discuss how Amazon’s stability depends on a dance between climate, deforestation, drought, and fire, and why some feedbacks can lock in change far faster than politics tend to move. From early land–atmosphere models to today’s field experiments under engineered drought, we unpack what science has learned about tall tree mortality, rooting depth, evapotranspiration, and the fire thresholds that can flip dense forest to open, flammable savanna.

The conversation moves from ocean drivers—El Niño and a record‑hot North Atlantic—into the messy human layer: man‑made fires, land grabbing, and organised crime accelerating degradation even as official deforestation drops. We get specific on numbers that matter: 120–200 billion tonnes of carbon stored; around 20 billion tonnes of water recycled daily; record droughts in 2005, 2010, 2015–16, and 2023–24; and why crossing 2°C makes saving the basin dramatically harder. Cox presses the global need to phase out fossil fuels quickly; Nobre details the Arc of Restoration, a plan to recover vast degraded zones and build a bioeconomy of standing forests and flowing rivers grounded in indigenous knowledge and local enterprise.

Hope here isn’t wishful—it’s strategic. Positive tipping points in human systems are already forming as renewables undercut fossil power and social norms shift. We talk practical climate justice: what high‑emitting nations can fund now, how to confront misinformation and political headwinds, and why indigenous stewardship is indispensable for biodiversity, carbon, and water security. If we pair rapid decarbonisation with zero deforestation, fire prevention, and large‑scale restoration, the Amazon can remain a cooling engine rather than a carbon source. 

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]