Designs for a Cooler Planet
Discover tomorrow at Aalto University's biggest exhibition! Open 1 September – 30 October 2026.
The Nordic Tipping Point
Our climate is shifting. Under threat of collapse, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), our planet's heat regulator, puts the future of the Nordics deeply in question. Join experts in keynote talks and panel discussions to understand tipping points, explore regional effects, and chart pathways towards solutions for a sustainable future.
In this event, we are committed ºÚÁÏÍø University’s principles for a safer space.
This event aims to provide a general understanding of tipping points and their timelines, explore Nordic-specific tipping points, such as AMOC collapse, and explore their regional effects while discussing pathways toward a sustainable future. It seeks to raise awareness of climate tipping points at Aalto University and among its stakeholders, fostering understanding of these critical thresholds and identifying actionable responses.
The program combines keynote insights, expert panels, and collaborative roundtable discussions to foster meaningful dialogue on climate action and research.
The Nordic Tipping Point -event is part of Design for a Cooler Planet exhibition —Aalto University's flagship exhibition of the year.
Target audience
The Nordic Tipping Point is open to all to attend. We would like to welcome all Aalto students, staff and researchers to attend as well as key environmental decision makers in public and private sectors to join us in discussing a path towards a sustainable future.
Unsure wether this event is for you? Do not worry, this event is open to all with a stake in our planet's future regardless of their background.
Agenda
*The agenda is subject to changes.
| 9.30 | Coffee & Tea |
| 10.00 | Opening words |
10.10 |
Keynote speeches |
| Nico Wunderling | |
| Susanne Ditlevsen | |
| Q&A | |
11.05 |
Panel discussion |
| Corinna Coupette | Matti Kuittinen | Minna Halme | Mika Järvinen | |
| 11.50 | Closing remarks |
| 12.00 | Event ends |
Keynote speakers
Nico Wunderling
Nico Wunderling is a climate scientist and Professor for Computational Earth System Sciences at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is also a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). His research focuses on the resilience and stability of the Earth system under climate change, particularly climate tipping elements such as polar ice sheets, ocean circulation systems, and tropical forests.
Wunderling investigates how these systems may undergo abrupt and potentially irreversible transitions as global warming intensifies. A central focus of his work is understanding tipping cascades - interactions in which changes in one part of the Earth system can trigger shifts in others. Wunderling’s research also explores social transformations (social tipping points) towards sustainability, including pathways for accelerating societal change in response to the climate crisis.
Before his professorship, Wunderling performed his PhD at PIK and held joint positions at PIK and the Stockholm Resilience Centre and was a guest researcher at Princeton University. His work contributes to international efforts to better understand climate risks, planetary resilience, and pathways toward a sustainable future.
Susanne Ditlevsen
Susanne Ditlevsen is professor of statistics and stochastic models in biology at the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her research interests center around statistics for stochastic processes, biostatistics, mathematical modeling, nonlinear dynamics, climate changes, particularly tipping points, ecology in the Arctic, and neuroscience. She is the President of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. In 2023 she published a paper together with climate physicist Peter Ditlevsen in Nature Communications where they predicted a high risk of collapse in this century of one of the major tipping elements in the climate, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, if we continue greenhouse gas emissions at the current rate.
Expert Panel
Corinna Coupette
Corinna Coupette is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Aalto University, where they lead the conducting research in the intersection of law, computer science, and complex systems. At Aalto’s School of Science, they serve as the Program Director of the interdisciplinary Master’s Program in Information Networks. Coupette is also a Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, a Affiliate, and a member of . Since January 2026, they have been leading the ERC Starting Grant Project : Toward a Computational Theory of Legal Complexity (2026–2030).
The overarching goal of Coupette's research is to understand how one can combine code, data, and law to better model, measure, and manage complex systems (e.g., contemporary information societies). To this end, they explore novel ways of connecting computer science and law, such as using algorithms to collect and analyze legal data as networks, or formalizing and implementing legal and mathematical desiderata for responsible data-centric machine learning with graphs. Currently, Coupette is particularly interested in computational legal theory – i.e., (1) designing computational methods to build a data-driven theory of legal systems and (2) understanding legal systems as computational systems – with implications for how we approach challenges like regulating AI, protecting democratic institutions, and realizing the sustainability transition.
Their interdisciplinary research is enabled by their undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate education in law and computer science. Inter alia, Coupette holds PhDs in both subjects, having written their first thesis on Legal Network Science at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance (Dr. iur., 2018, summa cum laude) and their second thesis on Exploring Graphs in Many Dimensions at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (Dr. rer. nat., 2023, summa cum laude).
Matti Kuittinen
Dr. Matti Kuittinen is an Associate Professor of Sustainable Construction at Aalto University´s Department of Architecture. His research is focused on climate impacts and circular economy in the built environment, as well as in the development of new building materials and methods. During his work at the Ministry of the Environment of Finland, Kuittinen developed the national whole life carbon assessment method, coordinated Nordic collaboration, and initiated the Nordic Bauhaus programme. As an architect, he has designed experimental sustainable buildings and participated in humanitarian construction operations.
Minna Halme
Minna Halme is professor of Sustainability Management at Aalto University School of Business and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Organization & Environment. She leads Sustainability in Business research at her organization and is co-founder of cross-disciplinary Creative Sustainability Master Programme. Her research focuses on co-creation of sustainability innovations, circular economy, system-level sustainability impacts of business, and contextualized innovating for poverty alleviation in the Global South. She is co-founder of Aalto University’s cross-disciplinary Creative Sustainability Master programme, and Aalto Global Impact.
She has received the Academy of Finland and other national awards for the societal impact of her research and several international scientific awards including the 2023 Distinguished Winner award for Responsible Research in Management (RRBM). She leads interdisciplinary Strategic Research Council funded project on Co-innovating Sustainable Textile Systems (finix.aalto.fi), and co-leads transdisciplinary research sustainability transitions of Nordic forest industry (ForTran).
Mika Järvinen
Mika Järvinen is Associate Professor and the Head of Energy Conversion and Systems research group in Aalto University. He works also as the vice-head of the Department of Energy and Mechanical Engineering and is the Director of Aalto's H2 Innovation Center since it's founding, September of 2023. Mika’s research focuses on carbon capture and utilization by oxyfuel combustion and Ca-looping CO2 capture, impacts of large scale-wind production, and production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels, several P2X solutions, energy storage systems, and H2 technologies. Mika is also a co-author and editor with Hanna Paulomäki of a book "Renewable Energy Engineering within Planetary Boundaries - A textbook for energy engineers", published by Springer Nature, and which has been downloaded already 82k times since its publication in May 2025.
Event Team
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