Not the Droids You are Looking For
A look at the first wave of English language media coverage of RCP8.5 RIP
Two weeks ago I wrote about the most significant development in climate science in decades: the international committee responsible for producing the scenarios adopted by the IPCC formally retired RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5, and SSP3-7.0 — labeling them “implausible.” Last week I documented the near-total silence that greeted the announcement from the English-language mainstream press.
Then President Trump posted about RCP8.5 on social media, calling it “WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!” (just about the only accurate part of his post!).
Within 48 hours, the New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg, AP, and Carbon Brief and others published on the scenarios. The main motivation for the coverage centered on Trump, not the new scenarios.
Today, as a follow up to my post noting that there was almost no English language coverage of RCP8.5 RIP, I take a closer look at this first wave of mainstream English language media reports.
In a nutshell: The overwhelming framing of the “climate beat” is that there is really nothing to see here, and to the extent that there is, what we are witnessing reflects the incredible success of climate policy. Right wing media has focused more on the politics, emphasizing the scenario evolution as a “win” for President Trump.
There is also much that is accurate across the coverage, and it is a positive that the news of the new scenarios is getting out. I do not expect the first wave of coverage to be the last.
Let’s take a look at how RCP8.5 RIP has been reported by several major outlets (and readers are invited to add other examples and critiques in the comments).
The New York Times
The NYT story was not framed around about a major development in climate scenario science but instead focused on the president’s social media post. I was interviewed for the story and pretty much everything I told the reporter was not reflected in the story, though I was characterized (some what uncharitably) and quoted (accurately).
The headline and subtitle — shown in the image below — have just about everything incorrect:
It was not a “tweak” (it was a major revision to the entire scenario envelope);
Renewable energy was not the reason for RCP8.5 RIP (as shown here at THB);
It was not a “worst-case” scenario (it was always a baseline/reference scenario);
Climate scientists were wrong all along (the extreme scenarios were always implausible).
It is true however that “Trump Weighed In.”
Eric Niiler, the NYT journalist, asked me what I think his readers should know. It is a good question. He heard my answer but his readers didn’t.
I told him that the retirement of the extreme scenarios should lead responsible outlets to engage in journalistic accountability, and especially the NYT which has fed its readers a steady diet of overhyped stories on RCP8.5. Not surprisingly, Mr. Niiler has been a participant — Avalanches! and End of the Winter Olympics! — I’m sure everyone on the NYT climate beat has contributed as well to the RCP8.5 coverage.
The NYT will eventually move away from nothing to see here but it might take a while.
The Times (UK)
The Times (UK) was among the first mainstream English-language outlets on the story. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, science writer Adam Vaughan filled the story with errors:
An update to the scientific scenarios used to predict Earth’s future climate reveals a narrowed window of possibilities, and the most apocalyptic worst-case scenario is ruled out thanks to the rapid rise of renewable energy.
Scenarios envisaged by climate scientists in 2010 assumed that the most catastrophic possibility was a rise of about 4.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. However, that is no longer considered likely. A new high-emissions scenario projects about 3.5C of warming by 2100.
Not “worst case” and not caused by “renewable energy” and not “4.5C.”
He also gets the numbers wrong.
According to IPCC AR6 (Table 4.2, global increase over 1850-1900) = 4.8C
The new CMIP7 MEDIUM = 2.6C
These numbers are apples to apples: SSP5-8.5 was a baseline and CMIP7 MEDIUM is “current policies.” In Vaughan’s favor, he was told by a CMIP7 ScenarioMIP member that the proper comparison to RCP8.5 is CMIP7 HIGH and also misrepresented its value as 3.5C. Both assertions are simply wrong.
To help make things clear, I created the table below to show the proper comparison between the RCPs and the CMIP7 for their baseline/current policy scenarios.
Vaughan’s article also referenced me, describing me as a “climate blogger.” Vaughn, who has come after me in print in the past when he was at The Guardian, might have also noted my side hustle as a researcher whose extensive peer-reviewed research on climate scenarios was favorably cited by the IPCC AR6, foreshadowing RCP8.5 RIP.
Associated Press
The AP story by Seth Borenstein, contains similar errors, which you’ll now recognize:
The Paris climate agreement in 2015 set a goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, or the mid-1800s, giving rise to the mantra “1.5 to stay alive,” but now scientists say that even their best case scenario still shoots past that signature temperature mark. On the other end, those same new scenarios no longer include the coal-heavy future that would lead to 4.5 degrees Celsius (8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by 2100, a scary scenario that many scientific studies used in their future projections.
The new proposed worst case scenario has an end-of-the-century warming of about 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 degrees Fahrenheit), a full degree (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) less than the old scenario.
To Borenstein’s credit, he does include and accurately reflect my views:
American Enterprise Institute’s Roger Pielke Jr. said changes to the highest end scenario matter because it was presented as a likely future that could come true if nothing changed. Thousands of scientific studies have been based on that highest warming scenario, called RCP8.5, even though research had already shown it to be improbable.
“It was always presented as where we were headed absent explicit climate policy,” even though it was based on out-of-date and incorrect coal-heavy energy theories, Pielke said in an email.
Interestingly, he quotes Keywan Riahi, lead researcher of the team that developed RCP8.5: “It was never a likely case.” Oh, really?
Perhaps that is what he believes now or even 15 years ago, but it leads directly to the question, why did no one shout out when RCP8.5 was made the only baseline scenario for CMIP5 and IPCC AR5 and everything that followed in policy? When the even more extreme SSP5-8.5 was made a baseline for CMIP6 and IPCC AR6?
Baseline scenarios play a very unique role in research and policy. They are not “worst case” or exploratory research tools.
Other Media
Bloomberg, Carbon Brief, and The Washington Post had similar stories with similar errors, which I won’t detail here.
Common to the coverage by these outlets is a framing that seeks to minimize the changes to the scenarios, attribute those small changes to renewable energy, and to focus on critiquing President Trump — who has nothing to do with scenario development or use, but he does take up a lot of oxygen.
These are the same outlets that have spent years running stories premised on RCP8.5, so it is not surprising that their first wave of coverage is to minimize and deflect.
Right Wing Media
Fox News covered RCP8.5 RIP and also led with the Trump angle. Fox News also repeated many of the same errors, calling RCP8.5 a “worst case scenario” that
“is being phased out after researchers concluded it no longer reflects the most plausible trajectory based on renewable energy growth, emissions trends and climate policies.”
Wrong.
The article’s focus is politics with several quotes from Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Lee Zeldin, the EPA Administrator.
The Daily Caller had a long article that goes into more scientific detail, and while repeating some of the errors common to the outlets above, also quotes extensively from THB, so gets those parts right!
Summary
The first wave of mainstream English-language coverage of RCP8.5 RIP shares a common framing: the changes are minor, renewable energy is the cause, and the real story is Donald Trump. This is all spin.
The outlets that spent years amplifying RCP8.5-based claims have so far chosen to minimize and deflect rather than reckon with that record. It would be unrealistic to expect accountability journalism in the first weeks, but it will come.
Before you go: If you think the mainstream media has some accountability tasks ahead, please click that “❤️ Like” button. More likes means more readers of THB. Thanks!
Comments, questions, discussion, debate — All welcome!
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Roger,
May I add an additional factor in judging the coverage, based on my experience having worked over the years for a number of the outlets you are writing about? I would add a kind of lemma to your Iron Law about climate policy, which is that the majority of news editors and publishers don't care much about environmental issues, think that the majority of readers/viewers also don't care much about them, and will always devote time to political and economic developments ahead of them. As a result, the level of editorial understanding of environmental issues is low.
Obviously there are exceptions like Grist and Heatmap News, but I would argue this relative lack of interest holds true for most of the mainstream press, where editors and reporters generally are trained on and interested in issues like crime, political battles, and economic ups and downs. Editors I've worked with tend to regard the environment as a worthy niche issue that a small number of people cares passionately about, but for most readers is of no interest, or even actively boring. I've actually been praised by editors for writing environmental pieces that "aren't as dull as most of this shit."
Given this background, it is no surprise to me that expunging RCP8.5 attracted little initial attention. If reporters mentioned it to editors, I can imagine the reaction: "A group of scientists most people have barely heard of with an exact role that hardly anybody understands (the IPCC) makes adjustments to dully named 'scenarios' that nobody has ever heard of that may affect scientific papers that nobody understands--and we're supposed to care because...?"
It's also no surprise to me that Trump's note jump-started the coverage--because now, all of a sudden, this obscure technical issue has spilled over into the political world that news people live in. I'd bet that some of the dismissive language that you describe is from reporters who are in the tank. But some of it is also a natural consequence of seeing the political valence of the story as more important and interesting than its intellectual content, which is what mostly interests you and, I'd guess, most of the readers of your Substack.
I'm not trying to defend any of this. Like you, I think these issues are important and undercovered. But I am also aware that this is, very often, a minority view in my profession.
Wonderful post, sir. Thank you. But early on, you said something that raises a fundamental question: the retirement of RCP 8.5 “should lead responsible outlets to engage in journalistic accountability…”
How can we possibly expect journalistic accountability when we don’t even have scientific accountability? Has the scientific community held Mann accountable? Oreskes? Hotez? Those who promulgated this fiction called ‘scientific consensus?’ Considering the vitriol raised by some when RCP 8.5 was discarded, I would say that scientific accountability is still lacking.
You have written in the past that “Good science will win out in the end. Even if that takes a while. All of us have a responsibility for helping to make that process happen a little faster.” Accountability cannot happen until that process is complete.
My two cents, adjusted for inflation.