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3. Governance imperatives for AMOC tipping risks from a Nordic perspective

The potential weakening or collapse of the AMOC represents a high-impact climate tipping risk for the Nordic countries, with implications across ecological, economic, and societal systems. Addressing this risk requires governance that operates across scales – from global mitigation efforts to local preparedness – and spans multiple policy domains. Core principles such as precaution, prevention, anticipatory and adaptive governance, and multigenerational justice provide an essential foundation for action.
Preventing AMOC collapse is the most important governance objective, reinforcing the need for ambitious global climate change mitigation action and new efforts to minimize overshoot of 1.5 °C. Strengthened regional and national risk assessment, operational monitoring, and early-warning capacities will be essential to support timely and well-informed decision-making. At the same time, Nordic countries must integrate AMOC-related risks into adaptation and preparedness strategies at national and local levels, supported by coordinated regional and EU-level planning.
Although the AMOC’s most immediate impacts are felt in the regions bordering the North Atlantic, it is fundamentally a global system with far-reaching consequences. A collapse would influence both hemispheres and could carry substantial economic repercussions, particularly for rapidly developing countries in the Global South. For this reason, the AMOC should be viewed not as a concern limited to Nordic nations but as a global policy priority requiring broad international cooperation and a global-scale systemic understanding of risks and their interdependence. At the same time, the Nordic region shares similar vulnerabilities to AMOC disruption and benefits from long-standing cooperation mechanisms, including the Nordic Council of Ministers, which together create a strong foundation for joint leadership in addressing tipping-point risks.

3.1 AMOC from a risk management perspective

Crossing Earth system tipping points such as the AMOC collapse could set off irreversible, self-reinforcing changes with cascading effects across the biosphere, global economy and human security. This escalating risk landscape calls for a fundamental shift in mindset: From managing gradual and predictable climate change to preparing for nonlinear and high-impact transformations of the Earth system that may unfold within decades. Conventional impact-probability matrices are ill-suited to capture tipping-point dynamics, calling for new risk management approaches that better reflect complexity, interactions and cascades (Lenton et al., 2025; Wunderling et al., 2021)
Many geohazards are routinely addressed through established risk management frameworks, such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. It is essential that suitable risk management frameworks are applied to the risk of AMOC collapse, but to do so may require significant adaptation of existing frameworks, as they do not generally capture deep uncertainty, threshold dynamics or cascading impacts. Some efforts to that extent are emerging (e.g., Hald-Mortensen, 2024), but much remains to be done. Formally recognizing AMOC collapse as a national security or strategic risk, as has been done in Iceland (Reuters, 2025) could help mobilize resources and institutional attention, enabling the development of practical mitigation and adaptation measures.
A more suitable paradigm is temperature-threshold-based risk assessment, which links tipping risks to scientifically defined warming ranges and classifies them by severity and irreversibility (Abrams et al., 2025). This consequence-focused approach prioritizes cascading impacts, feedback amplification and cross-system interactions over conventional probability estimates and better supports policy-relevant decision-making.
Such an approach has clear governance implications. By focusing on thresholds and the severity of potential impacts, decision-makers can act proactively under deep uncertainty, supported by anticipatory and adaptive governance across sectors and scales. Continuous monitoring, dedicated science–policy interfaces and polycentric coordination are essential to detect early-warning signals, manage cascading risks and enable timely action. (E.g., Abrams et al., 2025; Biesbroek et al., 2025; Milkoreit et al., 2024)
Established marine ecosystem management frameworks (e.g., Papadopoulou et al, 2025) may provide additional guidance for a holistic approach to ocean–climate system governance. Strengthening the links between climate governance and ecosystem management communities could allow reconciling frameworks for tipping point governance (Milkoreit et al. 2024) with more established frameworks. For example, the Drivers-Pressures-State change-Impact-Response (DPSIR (Patricio et al. 2016); and its extension to DAPSI(W)R(M) (Elliot et al. 2017]), calls for identifying those human needs (Drivers) that are the root cause of the environmental Pressures and need to be managed. In the case of AMOC collapse this first part of the framework is clear, calling for a green societal transformation that motivates the prevention measures - mainly the rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (see section 3.2). The second part could be used to create those indicators (compare to Good Environmental Status indicators in the EU Marine Framework Directive) that need to be monitored to follow the State, and those assessments that are needed to estimate the Impacts and societal Responses to them. Realising that AMOC can undergo strongly non-linear transformations suggest that the indicators to follow the State, and their limits that trigger further prevention and adaptation measures (see also section 3.2 and 5), need to follow the pre-cautionary principle and trigger early action to avoid the Impacts. Yet, society should create adaptation plans that minimize the Impacts to society.

3.2 Prevention

Global temperature increase is the key driver of observed and projected  weakening and the potential collapse of the AMOC (Weijer et al., 2020), creating a direct link between the AMOC tipping point and the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). The uncertainty range for the AMOC tipping point is currently 1.4 °C – 8 °C of global warming (Armstrong McKay et al., 2022). Preventing AMOC tipping would require minimizing the time global average temperature is within this range. Given that global average temperature today is already approximately 1.4 °C above the pre-industrial level (Kirchengast and Pichler, 2025; Foster et al., 2025) and 1.5 °C will be reached within years (Bavacqua et al. 2025), minimizing AMOC tipping risks requires immediate efforts to minimize further temperature increase, keeping global peak temperature increase as close to 1.5 °C as possible and returning the temperature increase back to 1.4 °C or lower.
Current mitigation strategies for CO2 and short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) need to be revised to create global emission pathways that limit overshoot of 1.5 °C (Lenton et al., 2025). Accelerated GHG emission reductions in line with requirements set by the Paris Agreement remain the central strategy to reduce AMOC tipping risks, delay its collapse and limit potential physical impacts. To achieve this, a rapid phase out of fossil fuel is required globally, particularly targeting fossil-fuel production with just phase-out plans and sectors with the highest consumption in the Nordics such as energy, industry, heating, transport, and agriculture (Engström et al., 2024; International Energy Agency, 2024). The Nordics should support the Fossil-Fuel Roadmap initiative led by Colombia and The Netherlands after COP30 and consider how their national efforts to transition away from fossil fuels in a planned and equitable manner can be accelerated. Emissions reduction measures should be supported by strengthening, expanding and recovering carbon sinks, particularly through the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector. Additional support could come from increasing carbon sinks through afforestation, agriculture practices that increase soil carbon, and ecosystem restoration in land and marine ecosystems - all of which could be prioritised within national climate targets.
Investing in the scaling of sustainable and ethical carbon removal technologies including nature-based (e.g., BECCS, afforestation) and engineered solutions (e.g., direct air capture or marine carbon dioxide removal), is a necessary component of strategies that limit temperature overshoot (Geden and Reisinger 2025; Lenton et al., 2025), enabling the reduction of global temperature back down from its peak (net negative emissions). The scale of carbon removal needed depends on the degree to which emission reductions succeed - the more emission reductions are delayed, the more carbon removal is needed. Fostering carbon removal must not distract from or weaken efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The latter is the more important and more cost effective measure.
It would be in the best interest of the Nordic countries to take the lead in global efforts to limit  emissions reductions and temperature increase with a multi-scale strategy. Using their collective, diplomatic influence, they could foster the acceleration of emission reductions within the Paris Agreement’s ambition cycle (NDCs, BTRs, Global Stocktake), support the development of a Roadmap away from Fossil Fuels following COP30, and support ambitious policies and emission reduction timelines within the EU. Simultaneously, they could support strengthe­ning multilateral governance of SLCPs, which currently consist of voluntary measures, e.g., the Global Methane Pledge. Third, the Nordic countries should foster multilateral initiatives to rapidly scale up carbon removal, e.g., building on Denmark’s effort to create a Group of Negative Emitters (GONE). All of these multilateral approaches need to be grounded in strengthened national targets, policies and plans with accelerated timelines for reaching net zero and net negative emission targets.
These measures are not only in line with international commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement (ICJ AO 2025), but will also result in co-benefits for the reduction of risks related to other tipping elements besides the AMOC.

3.3 Climate interventions

Climate interventions, or geoengineering solutions could provide additional means to limit global warming levels. In particular, solutions to reflect sunlight and cool the Earth (Solar Radiation Modification, SRM) or stabilise the cryosphere have been suggested as possible complement – not substitution (AGU, 2024) – for emission reduction and negative emission techniques.
SRM aims to reflect ≈1% of incoming sunlight (NAS 2021). The most prominent SRM methods are Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), i.e., injecting reflecting particles into the higher atmosphere, and Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB), i.e., making clouds over oceans more reflective by injecting salt dust. SAI would not be expensive compared to climate impacts (20 Billion $/​year per degree cooling; Smith, 2020), but global coverage would require novel airplanes to dump payloads at ≈20km height. Polar-only SAI could be feasible more quickly, rebuilding existing aircraft (Smith, 2024; Duffey et al., 2025). A local MCB pilot project is underway (Hernandez-Jaramillo et al., 2024).
No SRM perfectly offsets greenhouse gas impacts: Regional climate change would remain even if global mean surface temperature were restored. However, well-implemented SRM would likely reduce climate change (Irvine et al., 2019), including in the Arctic (Mettiänen 2022).  Modelling studies suggest SRM could reduce climate tipping risks for some, but not all tipping points, but uncertainties are large (Futerman et al. 2025; Hirasawa et al., 2023). Several modelling studies suggest global (Fasullo et al. 2018; Xie et al., 2022; Tilmes et al. 2020, Pflüger et al., 2024) and probably polar (Bednarz et al., 2025) SAI reduces AMOC weakening. SAI may be unable to restore previous AMOC weakening, and the combination of an already-weakened AMOC and SAI may overcool the North Atlantic (Pflüger et al., 2024). MCB over the North Atlantic may likewise reduce AMOC weakening (Henry 2025).
However, SRM would entail a range of side effects, including moderate air pollution (Visioni et al., 2020), delayed recovery of the ozone hole (Tilmes et al., 2022), shifts in tropical rainfall due to hemispheric overcooling (Haywood et al., 2013), and rapid global warming if SRM were abruptly terminated (Parker & Irvine, 2018; Trisos et al., 2018). Additional serious consequences may include the weakening of mitigation and prevention efforts (McLaren, 2016) and the emergence of international conflicts (Nielsen, 2025).
Cryosphere interventions may affect AMOC indirectly. Glacial climate interventions aim to stabilize ice sheets (Macayeal 2024; Lockley 2020; Wolovick & Moore 2018; Moore 2018) but may not be effective for rapidly retreating marine-terminating glaciers undergoing rapid retreat (Zhao et al. 2025). If effective, they might reduce Greenland freshwater input. Sea ice preservation (Desch et al. 2017, Field et al. 2018) might cause regional cooling and change North Atlantic salinity distribution, influencing AMOC in complex ways (Liu and Fedorov, 2022). These technologies are still quite speculative.
There is no coherent legal or governance framework for SRM research (particularly large-scale field experiments) or deployment (Reynolds 2021; Brent, 2021), though frameworks developed for other purposes, such as the London Protocol on Ocean Iron Fertilisation or the Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances might serve as models (Vinders et al. 2024). Some (regional) cryosphere interventions might fall under on-global bodies (Moore et al., 2021), though unanimous agreements in e.g., the Arctic might be unlikely (Mettiänen et al 2022). In recent years, several international commissions (Overshoot Commission, EU Report SRM) converged around recommending a (temporary) moratorium on SRM imple­men­tation and large-scale experiments but also accelerating international, transparent, inclusive research SRM’s potential benefits and risks. The scientific community has developed several guidelines on SRM research (AGU 2024, Hubert, 2021) and decision-making (Gardiner and Fragniére, 2018).
Any decision on climate interventions must balance the risks they alleviate against those they cause. In particular, potential benefits for AMOC cannot be viewed in isolation. Nordic countries should push for balanced, ethical research, for regulation against premature or unilateral implementation, and for building global governance structures ahead of potential implementation.

3.4 Adaptation and Preparedness

The risk for rapid AMOC slowdown calls for flexible approaches to climate adaptation and preparedness (Biesbroek et al. 2025; Lenton et at. 2025). At regional, national, and local levels, climate change adaptation plans, and policies are key governance instruments  Presently, they are based on warming scenarios and do not consider AMOC or subpolar gyre tipping (see e.g., Gregow et al. 2021). Existing adaptation policies need to be revisited to consider the implications of potential tipping scenarios. This will be challenging, given that expected climate change impacts differ markedly between tipping and no-tipping futures. Planning for widely diverging trajectories of change under significant uncertainty will require novel approaches, focusing on solutions that would succeed in both warmer and colder, wetter and dryer conditions. There is a need for flexible, long-term measures, such as adaptive multipurpose infrastructures  e (e.g., building insulation, dikes, electric grid resilience).
In many cases, the revision of climate adaptation strategies will require developing scale-specific (e.g., local or national) AMOC collapse scenarios, which do not exist today. Develop­ment of these plans also highlights the increased need for and po­ten­tial benefit of regional adaptation coordination and planning (e.g., Nordic scena­rio exercises) in the style of regional climate change strategy processes. Regional interdependencies could create additional/increased vulnerability to AMOC impacts, e.g., intra-regional food trade and interconnected electricity market.
The basis for effective climate adaptation is granular tipping scenario information that can be used for development of sector specific plans – such data is currently lacking. Here we present a few expert-opinion based suggestions for sector specific adaptation measures that account for an AMOC collapse risk. Suggestions for the new data and research needs are found in section 4. Knowledge gaps and needs for further research.
At EU-level the instruments under the funding for climate action and the solidarity fund could be further developed to account for longer term AMOC related risks, possibly including insurance-like mechanisms for resource sharing. For example, catastrophe bonds have proven successful in recovery from natural disasters and the covid pandemic. Developing such bonds for climate change induced non-linear changes, such as AMOC tipping, could provide extra funding for adaptation.
Having a diverse and resilient energy system serves both the regular climate change and AMOC collapse scenarios. Depending on the timing of the collapse, the energy system should be capable of dealing with growing heating demand and possible disruption of offshore systems and hydropower provision.
In terms of the transportation sector, increased ice-breaking capacity would serve both the current need to operate in the Arctic, but also the possible expansion of the sea ice in Northern Europe. Regarding land-based transportation, securing the infrastructure resilience for roads and rail transport and maintaining human know-how (local/​indigenous knowledge) for harsh winter conditions also in a warmer future is essential. Coordination at different governance levels, as well as emphasizing education and cross-generational learning, is likely useful. Since AMOC collapse induces sea level rise in all AMOC slowdown scenarios, it would be essential to factor the AMOC contribution into the national regulations, such as building regulations and coastal flooding preparedness plans.
Some sectors, such as reindeer herding and winter tourism may benefit from moderate cooling, although possibly associated changes in precipitation and weather extremes create uncertainty. Here again, granular information of both changes in the mean climate and extremes events are needed for creating adaptation plans.
In general, essential social systems such as public health, education, housing, and social services would also likely be heavily affected by the impacts of an AMOC collapse and therefore need to be involved in preparedness and adaptation planning.

AMOC from a bottom-up perspective: The role of private actors and local communities

AMOC risks connected to climate change cannot be managed at a single scale. Following Milkoreit et al (2024), Earth system governance, including climate governance frameworks, require cross-scale and multi-level governance. This also requires articulating an adaptive governance approach that specifies top and bottom-down governance that includes and involves private and societal actors. The private sector includes large multinational corporations with global supply chains and markets that both contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and are also directly affected by AMOC, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that mainly need to adapt to changes, and climate entrepreneurs who might have a role in both mitigation and adaptation.
To include a bottom-up approach and engage companies and local communities in AMOC governance we provide an example of the regenerative governance concept to showcase the ability of communities to care for ecosystems and connect with others through place-based and function-specific solutions to national, regional and global challenges (Albareda & Branzei, 2024). The potential collapse of the AMOC highlights the need for regenerative governance community-based action through different phases of change: Before collapse (preventing), during reorganization, and in rebuilding (Hiedanpää et al, 2020). As an adaptation measure, prior to the AMOC collapse, regenerative governance could be adopted by local communities, who have a sustainable mix of traditional and modern food practices and supply chains. The governments can support and invest to gather and share their workable practices and experience, and to co-create adaptation strategies for other communities and societal actors. If an AMOC collapse were to happen, the self-sufficient local communities could adapt by working bottom-up by setting up novel livelihoods adapted to the new stable state by promoting regenerative leadership. Governments and other upper level structures should be ready to support the bottom-up adaptation measures.
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