This study challenges the conventional wisdom that the commitment to an Earth System tipping point occurs as soon as a critical threshold is crossed. The authors show that the number of elements that would undergo tipping is severely reduced if the duration of exceedance of the Paris Agreement 1.5 °C threshold can be kept below a century. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that all tipping elements would be avoided if global warming over 1.5 °C is restricted to 30 years and peak warming is kept below 2.5 °C. Consequently, the duration of exceedance of tipping thresholds matters.