The last figure in the post illustrates how corrupt and self-dealing the climate researchers and their aggressive enablers in the climate lobby have been. The assumptions upon which the medium and high scenarios were built have been shown to be completely divorced from reality. I now believe they were constructed for the express purpose of supporting the Malthusian “environmental” movement’s agenda to depress human welfare and the human population.
Can the environmentalists just get it over with already? Seize the governments and means of production, blow up the oil, gas and coal facilities, turn a blind to starvation etc? We all need to go on a diet anyway. The average Venezuelan lost 20 or so pounds under late Chavez-early Maduro. And the North Korean populace just falls in line. Very low carbon footprints there. There are ways to do this, gang. 😳
Thank you for this article. The scenarios are key and no one seems to realize this. I would hope that a bunch of scientists would at least assign a probability to each scenario vs. just saying they are all plausible. Did they go back and see how previous scenarios fit the actuals. so they could do a better job?
I read your article with some interest. I have looked at history matches to the spaghetti temperature curves proposed over the years and it looks like we are tracking about 10% below the mean. However, the U.S. and western Europe have gone about as far as they can in reducing CO2 emissions. Meanwhile China and India are greatly increasing theirs through greatly increased use of coal. Africa is telling the World Bank where to stick it when the WB proposes using expensive and less reliable wind and solar as opposed to much cheaper and more reliable coal. Africa is barely electrified but that is going to change and coal will be the change agent no matter what Davos man says. What effect will increased electrification in Asia and Africa have on temperature curves going forward. Have those increases in electrification been properly modelled
I can see something pernicious beginning to brew. I wonder, Roger, if you have listened to Sam Harris's podcast chat (#333) with Chris Field about climate change? Field said something I found remarkable, that RCP8.5 had become less likely (as much as 33% of the climate problem solved) due to technologies and policies that had been implemented in the last decade or so. But it seems that that extreme scenario was never remotely likely even if the world continued full speed forward with fossil fuels (which it has!). I think Field is giving specious credit to efforts that played zero role in altering what he calls the 'climate problem'; setting up a false claim where he can profess that 'hey, the reason why this climate apocalypse never appeared was because we deployed a million windmills.' Instead of admitting they got it wrong - this extreme climate outcome was never coming - they will claim their heroic actions stopped it!
Here is Field in 2021 responding to one of our critiques of RCP8.5:
"RCP8.5 scenario has long been described as a “business-as-usual” pathway with a continued emphasis on energy from fossil fuels with no climate policies in place. This remains 100% accurate, even if RCP8.5 does not appear to be the most likely high-emissions pathway."
This business with the extreme climate scenarios manufactured to replace RCP 8.5 is beginning to feel like the zombie wars, or maybe the legend of the hydra, many-headed monster of Greek myth. In the Argonaut myth, Jason had to cauterize the stump of each hydra's head he cut off, to prevent another from growing back in its place. We will have to think of some less drastic treatment to persuade the prolific authors of these ever-green scenarios to re-engage with the real world.
How can GDP, energy production and consumption be INPUTS to the modeling process. They ought to be outputs!
IAM???
What are the policy assumptions that go into the (net?) emissions scenarios?
Why it radiative forcing separate from climate models? Isn’t that just part of the link between CO2 accumulation and climate change?
And why isn’t the scientific evidence base what the an climate model is made up from?
Apparently no economist was involved in developing this scheme. 😊
Who does what with the output of all this however well or badly it's done?
Could you please spell out how it all SHOUD de done? Aren't we looking ultimately for a "model" that links alternative policies for reducing net emissions to specific geophysical outcomes which have different costs and benefits?
A number of prominent physicists have determined that doubling CO2 concentration from 400ppm to 800ppm will likely increase global average temperature by only 0.5 degree C, excluding feedbacks, as most of the heat trapping effect has already occurred. This effect does not seem to be incorporated in the models. I wonder why.
"In this proposal, we remain agnostic about the socio-economic pathways ultimately used in producing the emissions and land use pathways with IAMs [integrated assessment models]."
Right.
In English:
We don't care how much this costs or how much land it might require. As I have said many many times, land-use conflicts are the binding constraint on the growth of wind and solar. I have a piece on that very issue in today's NY Post. Nearly 10% of all the rejections or restrictions in the Renewable Rejection Database are from New York.
Though you explain much of what Scenario-MIP is doing, you don’t talk about why they are doing this. Yes, their purpose is to “provide emissions and land use pathways to drive earth system models,” but why do they believe new models are needed. What’s wrong with the current suite of models? Do they think that because RCP8.5 has fallen from favor, we need a new extreme?
On another but related matter, last month, Science of Climate Change published “A Critical Reassessment of the Anthropogenic CO₂-Global Warming Hypothesis: Empirical Evidence Contradicts IPCC Models and Solar Forcing Assumptions.” The paper, promoted by Clintel, concludes that “Our analysis reveals that human CO2 emissions, constituting a mere 4% of the annual carbon cycle, are dwarfed by natural fluxes, with isotopic signatures and residence time data indicating negligible long-term atmospheric retention…We conclude that the anthropogenic CO2-Global Warming hypothesis lacks empirical substantiation, overshadowed by natural drivers such as temperature feedbacks and solar variability, necessitating fundamental reevaluation of current climate paradigms.”
This paper’s conclusions are interesting and concur with those of a paper published several months ago by Alimonti (that was retracted under great pressure the Guardian and some oft-quoted climate scientists). You wrote of that debacle in August 2023. But what what may be of larger interest is the acknowledgement that the Clintel paper was written by Grok3, an AI platform. The paper clearly acknowledges Grok’s role as the lead author, but adds that “significant human guidance” was provided by Cohler, Legates, Soon, and Soon. Clintel states the paper has been peer-reviewed.
Have you seen this paper? Your reactions to its conclusions? I applaud the authors for acknowledging AI's role in the effort, but I'm not sure I'm ready for the ethical conundrums this will present.
"ScenarioMIP wants to run plausible scenarios and therefore wants to run the highest plausible scenario , as the current proposal includes (still to be determined how high that will be, and we are expecting it to be determined by a convergence of trends that would characterize it as low likelihood). "
So it appears that Scenario-MIP recognize it to be a low-likelihood scenario, yet one still useful for testing model sensitivity. It is unfortunate that many will uncritically view this as a prediction of a climate apocalypse. But the time-tested journalism aphorism "if it bleeds, it leads" still stands true today, albeit in a different context.
Agreed. If they want an extreme scenario for model runs they should just invent such a scenario and not present it apple-to-apples with the others. By definition any extreme high or low scenario will be low likelihood - the empirical question is how high and how low?
How much outrage do you think there would be if CMIP published results from a suite of scenarios but then it was revealed that they didn’t publish the result from low-likelihood, high-emission scenarios that showed the highest impact? They would answer that this scenario was used solely for the purpose of testing model sensitivity. But would critics jump on them for concealing their results and downplaying the risks of climate change to satisfy the ideological leanings of the current administration? They might be in lose-lose situation here where they won’t make anybody happy.
As to likelihood, I don’t think the question is just empirical but also has a subjective element. How much likelihood risk are you willing to take in the selection of plausible scenarios?
Question for you Roger: As concerned citizens of the world, whom can we escalate this to? Is there anyone or any body that can send this group back to re-do these numbers? If not, is it possible to start a competitor to this group?
It is a great question. It is truly amazing that these scenarios are so important but also produced by a small group of self-governed academics from just a few research institutes and universities in NA and EU. Anyone can create competing scenarios, but because these are the ones endorsed by the climate science community, these are the ones that everyone uses - else their work be ignored and go uncited. Better leadership in climate science is needed.
I assume that the work of the scenario group is done under the guidance/umbrella of the IPCC. This is the same IPCC that Roger keeps reminding us is so valuable that if it didn't already exist it would have to be invented.
If you want to find the problem, it is right here under our noses. The IPCC is as moribund and corrupt as the UN from which it was spawned. Those who know this and go along to get along are complicit.
These scenarios are actually created under the World Climate Research Program Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (WCRP/CMIP), and CMIP is hosted by the European Space Agency. There is a lot of overlap with the IPCC, of course. See:
The last figure in the post illustrates how corrupt and self-dealing the climate researchers and their aggressive enablers in the climate lobby have been. The assumptions upon which the medium and high scenarios were built have been shown to be completely divorced from reality. I now believe they were constructed for the express purpose of supporting the Malthusian “environmental” movement’s agenda to depress human welfare and the human population.
Armageddon - not science. Models - not observations.
Can the environmentalists just get it over with already? Seize the governments and means of production, blow up the oil, gas and coal facilities, turn a blind to starvation etc? We all need to go on a diet anyway. The average Venezuelan lost 20 or so pounds under late Chavez-early Maduro. And the North Korean populace just falls in line. Very low carbon footprints there. There are ways to do this, gang. 😳
Thank you for this article. The scenarios are key and no one seems to realize this. I would hope that a bunch of scientists would at least assign a probability to each scenario vs. just saying they are all plausible. Did they go back and see how previous scenarios fit the actuals. so they could do a better job?
We did:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4ebf
Thank you!
I read your article with some interest. I have looked at history matches to the spaghetti temperature curves proposed over the years and it looks like we are tracking about 10% below the mean. However, the U.S. and western Europe have gone about as far as they can in reducing CO2 emissions. Meanwhile China and India are greatly increasing theirs through greatly increased use of coal. Africa is telling the World Bank where to stick it when the WB proposes using expensive and less reliable wind and solar as opposed to much cheaper and more reliable coal. Africa is barely electrified but that is going to change and coal will be the change agent no matter what Davos man says. What effect will increased electrification in Asia and Africa have on temperature curves going forward. Have those increases in electrification been properly modelled
AIs taking over the world would possibly cause that much emission...
Maybe we should name that scenario: "AI Takeover".
IEA released a report on this today:
https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai
Thank you very much. An informative report. Maybe you could do an article on it 😀
I would bet my next mortgage payment that not a single US politician has read this piece--or if they did, would understand it.
Surely most members of the House and Senate subscribe to THB? ;-)
I can see something pernicious beginning to brew. I wonder, Roger, if you have listened to Sam Harris's podcast chat (#333) with Chris Field about climate change? Field said something I found remarkable, that RCP8.5 had become less likely (as much as 33% of the climate problem solved) due to technologies and policies that had been implemented in the last decade or so. But it seems that that extreme scenario was never remotely likely even if the world continued full speed forward with fossil fuels (which it has!). I think Field is giving specious credit to efforts that played zero role in altering what he calls the 'climate problem'; setting up a false claim where he can profess that 'hey, the reason why this climate apocalypse never appeared was because we deployed a million windmills.' Instead of admitting they got it wrong - this extreme climate outcome was never coming - they will claim their heroic actions stopped it!
I'll track that down!
Here is Field in 2021 responding to one of our critiques of RCP8.5:
"RCP8.5 scenario has long been described as a “business-as-usual” pathway with a continued emphasis on energy from fossil fuels with no climate policies in place. This remains 100% accurate, even if RCP8.5 does not appear to be the most likely high-emissions pathway."
https://issues.org/climate-scenarios-reality-pielke-jr-ritchie-forum/
No paywall for that Harris show
Well at least their funding from DC will hopefully dry up.
This business with the extreme climate scenarios manufactured to replace RCP 8.5 is beginning to feel like the zombie wars, or maybe the legend of the hydra, many-headed monster of Greek myth. In the Argonaut myth, Jason had to cauterize the stump of each hydra's head he cut off, to prevent another from growing back in its place. We will have to think of some less drastic treatment to persuade the prolific authors of these ever-green scenarios to re-engage with the real world.
Oops, sorry folks. Bulfinch's Mythology tells me it was Hercules, not Jason, who killed the hydra. My mistake.
How can GDP, energy production and consumption be INPUTS to the modeling process. They ought to be outputs!
IAM???
What are the policy assumptions that go into the (net?) emissions scenarios?
Why it radiative forcing separate from climate models? Isn’t that just part of the link between CO2 accumulation and climate change?
And why isn’t the scientific evidence base what the an climate model is made up from?
Apparently no economist was involved in developing this scheme. 😊
Who does what with the output of all this however well or badly it's done?
Could you please spell out how it all SHOUD de done? Aren't we looking ultimately for a "model" that links alternative policies for reducing net emissions to specific geophysical outcomes which have different costs and benefits?
As I've long argued IPCC SRES 2000 had things pretty much about right for scenarios.
And yes, these are great questions!
Thanks, but I meant the whole thing. How to move from scientific investigation to policy making.
A number of prominent physicists have determined that doubling CO2 concentration from 400ppm to 800ppm will likely increase global average temperature by only 0.5 degree C, excluding feedbacks, as most of the heat trapping effect has already occurred. This effect does not seem to be incorporated in the models. I wonder why.
Great stuff, Roger. This line jumped out:
"In this proposal, we remain agnostic about the socio-economic pathways ultimately used in producing the emissions and land use pathways with IAMs [integrated assessment models]."
Right.
In English:
We don't care how much this costs or how much land it might require. As I have said many many times, land-use conflicts are the binding constraint on the growth of wind and solar. I have a piece on that very issue in today's NY Post. Nearly 10% of all the rejections or restrictions in the Renewable Rejection Database are from New York.
Excellent work, sir. Thank you.
Though you explain much of what Scenario-MIP is doing, you don’t talk about why they are doing this. Yes, their purpose is to “provide emissions and land use pathways to drive earth system models,” but why do they believe new models are needed. What’s wrong with the current suite of models? Do they think that because RCP8.5 has fallen from favor, we need a new extreme?
On another but related matter, last month, Science of Climate Change published “A Critical Reassessment of the Anthropogenic CO₂-Global Warming Hypothesis: Empirical Evidence Contradicts IPCC Models and Solar Forcing Assumptions.” The paper, promoted by Clintel, concludes that “Our analysis reveals that human CO2 emissions, constituting a mere 4% of the annual carbon cycle, are dwarfed by natural fluxes, with isotopic signatures and residence time data indicating negligible long-term atmospheric retention…We conclude that the anthropogenic CO2-Global Warming hypothesis lacks empirical substantiation, overshadowed by natural drivers such as temperature feedbacks and solar variability, necessitating fundamental reevaluation of current climate paradigms.”
This paper’s conclusions are interesting and concur with those of a paper published several months ago by Alimonti (that was retracted under great pressure the Guardian and some oft-quoted climate scientists). You wrote of that debacle in August 2023. But what what may be of larger interest is the acknowledgement that the Clintel paper was written by Grok3, an AI platform. The paper clearly acknowledges Grok’s role as the lead author, but adds that “significant human guidance” was provided by Cohler, Legates, Soon, and Soon. Clintel states the paper has been peer-reviewed.
Have you seen this paper? Your reactions to its conclusions? I applaud the authors for acknowledging AI's role in the effort, but I'm not sure I'm ready for the ethical conundrums this will present.
Here's the complete quote from Scenario_MIP:
"ScenarioMIP wants to run plausible scenarios and therefore wants to run the highest plausible scenario , as the current proposal includes (still to be determined how high that will be, and we are expecting it to be determined by a convergence of trends that would characterize it as low likelihood). "
So it appears that Scenario-MIP recognize it to be a low-likelihood scenario, yet one still useful for testing model sensitivity. It is unfortunate that many will uncritically view this as a prediction of a climate apocalypse. But the time-tested journalism aphorism "if it bleeds, it leads" still stands true today, albeit in a different context.
Agreed. If they want an extreme scenario for model runs they should just invent such a scenario and not present it apple-to-apples with the others. By definition any extreme high or low scenario will be low likelihood - the empirical question is how high and how low?
How much outrage do you think there would be if CMIP published results from a suite of scenarios but then it was revealed that they didn’t publish the result from low-likelihood, high-emission scenarios that showed the highest impact? They would answer that this scenario was used solely for the purpose of testing model sensitivity. But would critics jump on them for concealing their results and downplaying the risks of climate change to satisfy the ideological leanings of the current administration? They might be in lose-lose situation here where they won’t make anybody happy.
As to likelihood, I don’t think the question is just empirical but also has a subjective element. How much likelihood risk are you willing to take in the selection of plausible scenarios?
Question for you Roger: As concerned citizens of the world, whom can we escalate this to? Is there anyone or any body that can send this group back to re-do these numbers? If not, is it possible to start a competitor to this group?
It is a great question. It is truly amazing that these scenarios are so important but also produced by a small group of self-governed academics from just a few research institutes and universities in NA and EU. Anyone can create competing scenarios, but because these are the ones endorsed by the climate science community, these are the ones that everyone uses - else their work be ignored and go uncited. Better leadership in climate science is needed.
I assume that the work of the scenario group is done under the guidance/umbrella of the IPCC. This is the same IPCC that Roger keeps reminding us is so valuable that if it didn't already exist it would have to be invented.
If you want to find the problem, it is right here under our noses. The IPCC is as moribund and corrupt as the UN from which it was spawned. Those who know this and go along to get along are complicit.
These scenarios are actually created under the World Climate Research Program Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (WCRP/CMIP), and CMIP is hosted by the European Space Agency. There is a lot of overlap with the IPCC, of course. See:
https://www.wcrp-climate.org/about-wcrp/about-history