Picking up on this in November after doing some further research on plausibility. You mentioned Steve Schneider - his paper Rasool and Schneider 1971 highlighted a cooling scare that would be far more serious because the colling effect of aerosols would be exponential, rather than logarithmic, as per CO2. Hubert Lamb had also warned on this potential. It made me wonder if there are any plausible scenarios that would see global cooling e.g. RCP -2.5. Surely, if we give aerosol cooling significant weight, then a case can be made for global cooling - and that would be a real "worst case" scenario! Read the intro to Schneider's book "The Genesis Strategy" that, read in 2025, makes reading the rest of the book a waste of time given the famines he predicted didn't happen.
Excellent, thoughtful writeup. It reminds me of a summary often heard in news stories about climate change and emissions mitigation: something to the effect "Scientists say we must reach Net Zero emission by 2100 (or 2050, or 2030) to prevent the worst effects of climate change."
These statements were fundamentally meaningless because "the worst effects" were never defined. The original projections of warming were for 6-8C of warming by 2100; based on this, "the worst effects" have already been prevented. Then, limiting warming to 2C by 2100 would prevent "the worst effects." Then, I suppose that 2C of warming was the new worst case scenario, because we needed to limit warming to 1.5C to prevent "the worst effects."
RCP8.5 is an amazing piece of decision-based evidence-making, like 97% of scientists, or 80% of what’s left in the oilsands must stay in the ground or we all die.
All are made up datum points that support the narrative and therefor are repeated ad nauseum by the climate/insane.
It doesn’t matter if it’s discredited, only those of us that can read know that. Most nod dully as they go back to following the war with Oceana.
I would love to believe your paper and certainly I agree that RCP8.5 is not valid. However, China has added 200 GW or coal-fired power since 2019. China is currently building 204 GwH of coal fired power plants in China and additional plants in Africa. As of 2025, China has 1,171GwH of coal power capacity (Bryce, 2025). China has also announced plans to expand domestic coal mining by 300 million tons a year and to build a 620-million-ton coal reserve (WSJ, 2022). I am personally very skeptical of reports that China's coal use will peak in 2030 and of the IEA report. You don't build coal-fired powerplants to last five years. Meanwhile India is doubling coal production (Tinker 2024). As Africa begins to electrify, they will use the cheapest most available energy source, which is coal. Coal use has greatly decreased in the U.S. and Europe, but further substantial decreases are unlikely.
So given these factors how confident are you of future coal consumption and how will it affect your curves going forward if you have underestimated it?
"However, China has added 200 GW or coal-fired power since 2019. China is currently building 204 GwH of coal fired power plants in China and additional plants in Africa. As of 2025, China has 1,171GwH of coal power capacity (Bryce, 2025). China has also announced plans to expand domestic coal mining by 300 million tons a year and to build a 620-million-ton coal reserve (WSJ, 2022). I am personally very skeptical of reports that China's coal use will peak in 2030 and of the IEA report. You don't build coal-fired powerplants to last five years."
It doesn't matter how much coal-fired capacity China is building. What matters more is how much more coal they're consuming. And even that doesn't matter much compared to the question of how much more coal the *world* is consuming. And the answer is that world coal consumption is not increasing very fast at all...since 2013, the increase in global coal consumption has averaged less than 1 percent per year:
"As Africa begins to electrify, they will use the cheapest most available energy source, which is coal."
No, Africa won't use coal. Africa has no native coal to speak of, and coal is *not* the "cheapest, most available energy source" for Africa. They would have to ship in coal from distant continents (e.g., Australia, possibly the U.S.). And even if they did, and built power plants on the coasts, they'd have to distribute the electricity from those coal-fired power plants.
Solar electricity is "cheapest, most available energy source" for Africa, and that's what Africa will use to electrify.
P.S. More than 20 years ago, I predicted global CO2 emissions (from electricity production and other industrial processes...not including CO2 changes from land use) would most likely peak circa 2030. And I predicted that it was 90 percent certain that the global CO2 emissions peak would occur sometime between 2020-2050.
Further, my prediction for the most likely value of the peak was 8.8 GtC (gigatonnes as carbon), and that it was 90 percent certain the peak would be between 7.0 and 12.2 GtC. The current value for global CO2 emissions is approximately 37.4 GtCO2 (gigatonnes of CO2)...which when one multiplies by 12/44 (the respective molecular weights of carbon and carbon dioxide), the global CO2 emissions are approximately 10.2 GtC.
You state: "It doesn't matter how much coal-fired capacity China is building. What matters more is how much more coal they're consuming. "
So, is it your position that China is building these coal plants, but does not intend to use them? Why is China building 420.8 GW of new coal fired capacity. New 2025 data show my earlier number of 200 GW was way too low. It only referred to plants being actively constructed, not new plants in the planning stages
You cite the IEA chart. But you have to look at the details. The overall rise in coal use is lessened by major reduction of coal use in the U.S. and Europe. The charts show that China's coal use has increased 3.2X since 2000. But using your dates it has increased 1.13X since 2013. India's Coal use has increased 1.46X since 2013. In contrast U.S. coal use has been reduced by 41% during that time and the "rest of the world", (which I assume is largely Europe), it has decreased by 28%. De-coalification is largely complete in many areas of Europe, and the U.S. is not far behind. So, the pace of those reductions will decrease, not increase. Meanwhile China's and India's usage will continue to increase. Again, according to the IEA chart, 51% of all coal burned for energy on the world is burned in China. I have seen estimates as high as 56% in other publications.
Africa's coal reserves are widely variable. Many countries have no coal reserves. In contrast South Africa has the 12th largest coal reserves in the nation, although it is dwarfed by coal reserves in the U.S., China and India. But coal is very easily transportable in huge quantities by ship. Countries with large rivers, such as Egypt, rely largely on Hydropower, but there are only so many rivers and only so many dams that can be built on them. Mini-hydroelectric plants work well for small village with limited electricity needs but they are not feasible for large cities with grid-based systems.
There are a myriad of reasons why solar will not work at scale in Africa, despite the persistent at dream of solar panels covering the Sahara (the surface of which moves). How are you going to build transmission lines from the Sahara to Angola, across borders of countries which may be a war at any given time? And why would you with Angola abundant fossil fuel reserves?
Bu the biggest problem with solar is the same as in developed countries. It is intermittent and not dispatchable. If you build a 100 MW coal plant, you add 100 MW of energy to a grid. However, if you build a 100 MW solar or wind plant, in the U.S. you only add around 5 to 20 MW to the system. The same would be true for Africa
The problem is that electricity is the only commodity that is consumed the moment it is created and solar only works when the sun shines. Grid batteries are exceedingly expensive and deplete in 2-4 hours. So, you need back-up thermal generators that are constantly spinning to be ready to create energy when the sun is not shining or even when a cloud passes of the solar panels. And of course they need to create power at night. Otherwise, power grids need to shed load to maintain AC frequency when solar energy decreases. This recently happened in the Iberian Peninsula. A single point of failure at a solar farm caused the collapse of nearly the entire grid in Spain.
The result is that the additional cost of maintaining two grid power sources simultaneously makes solar and wind far more expensive in both undeveloped and developed countries - even with huge subsidies for both wind and solar. I have studied this in detail and could go on for pages.
"In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They’re now running around 50%. We can also see this in operating hours data from the National Energy Administration (NEA) of China."
"If utilisation rates continue to drop, China’s coal use could fall despite it adding more capacity."
"Take an analogy. A CEO could hire lots of new people for their company. But if everyone is forced to switch from full-time to part-time contracts, the total hours worked by the company might be lower despite adding a bunch of new recruits."
So it's not that the new plants won't be used at all, it's that the capacity factors of the whole fleet, including the new plants, will continue to be low and declining.
"Meanwhile China's and India's usage will continue to increase. Again, according to the IEA chart, 51% of all coal burned for energy on the world is burned in China. I have seen estimates as high as 56% in other publications."
The thing about both China and India is that they simply don't have the coal reserves to increase usage for even a couple of decades, let alone to continue to increase--or even remain at 2025 values--for the remainder of this century. Coal use in China and India in 2100 will almost certainly be *less* than in 2025, not the same or more.
"There are a myriad of reasons why solar will not work at scale in Africa, despite the persistent at dream of solar panels covering the Sahara (the surface of which moves). How are you going to build transmission lines from the Sahara to Angola, across borders of countries which may be a war at any given time? And why would you with Angola abundant fossil fuel reserves?"
Solar will rule in Africa, not because of large high-voltage lines distributing energy from the Sahara, but because *all* of Africa is continent of excellent solar resources:
Solar will also rule in Africa because transportation in Africa will be electrified (just like the rest of the world), and those battery electric vehicles will be able to both suck electricity out of the grid when the solar input is too high, and put energy into the grid when the solar input is too low.
The electrical grids in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, etc. were all set up to have big power stations and extensive grids to move electricity from those big stations out to individual residences. The grid in Africa has essentially yet to be built, so it will be able to be built in a manner that is optimized for diffuse solar electrical inputs, and automotive batteries to support the grid.
"Worst case scenarios" are merely fodder for mental onanism by climate scientists. It's not what happens but what a community, nation or society does about what happens that's truly important. Stress testing at each level of government is essential (as you point out).
In a paper I wrote on stress testing ("Stress Testing to Assess Recovery from Extreme Events." Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 18 (2021): 151-176.) I point out that "disasters have direction." In other words, physical events like hurricanes attack a community's physical assets. This then cascades down into economic and social impacts. This implies that a disaster for one community may not be a disaster for another depending on the resistance and redundancy of its assets. Put simply, my worst case may not be the same as yours.
But a properly designed stress test does a lot more than just look at impacts, it looks at recovery. Can we recover? How long might it take? What resources will it require? If we can't recover, what do we need to do to reduce impacts? Looking at scenarios simply can't supply answers to these questions.
Thank for these insights. If I understand correctly you are saying that the brodder context matter in terms of what Sofiemyr at large would be under these assumed futures.
I hav argued alene similar lines in terms of the emissions per capita. If you compare a country with, say, 3 tonnes per capita to one with 9 tonnes per capita it seems a lot is left out if you do not compare the standard of living at the same time. What is your take on this?
It’s not just standard of living, it’s where you live too. I visited colombia last July, houses aren’t insulated whereas here in canada we insulate heavily and yet use more energy just to stay alive than people in colombia use for the rest of their daily needs.
That’s also why immigration isn’t a zero sum game.
Every immigrant from equatorial regions to canada increases their emissions a magnitude just to avoid freezing to death.
Trump’s wording is perhaps not the best, but you spent the rest of the article essentially agreeing with him. Not good or bad, just an observation.
I am not surprised with the number of Google docs finds of articles referencing RCP8.5. I also noticed that most articles dealing with scenarios chose this one to use. Saying the climate community has moved beyond this is a cop out. I suspect when new scenarios come out, the community will choose the highest (most extreme) scenarios.
Also, choosing RCP8.5 gave license to imply extreme climate impacts (hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, etc.). Even though, as you’ve pointed out, there isn’t evidence to support it.
"The political importance associated with climate scenarios means that those holding a tight grip on their creation today will be unlikely to open up that process to a more democratic approach to thinking about our collective futures and the different paths ahead."
For these people, the "worst case climate scenario" is obvious. It's the one where they lose control over the narrative.
Anthropogenically forced climate change is a product of 8+ billion people (and ~10 billion by 2100) engaged in economic activities that require energy to ensure their survival. Future emission scenarios (worst case and otherwise) should be in the hands of experts (yes, credentialed and experienced experts—the ones often discounted by a segment of commenters here) in population dynamics, economics, energy, sociology and political science.
Climate scientists, should not be involved with setting the scenarios. There needs to be a kind of firewall between the emission scenario creators and the emission scenario analysts. Scenario creation should be taken out of the remit of IPCC.
In terms of worst case scenario, it should be clear we need to move beyond the narrow focus on emissions and even a radiative forcing expressed as global temperature anomalies.
Two types of framing were proposed by Fussel 2009 and O’Brien 2005 as summarized in
They introduced “outcome vulnerability” and “contextual vulnerability” as two distinct structures in which to assess worst case scenarios. The current RCP type narrow focus is, unfortunately, an example of outcome vulnerability and thus is not inclusive of the spectrum of major environmental and social risks.
What's a "climate advocate". Who doesn't advocate for climate? Perhaps "climate change advocate"... well some advocate that the climate should be stable. Although the climate is always changing. Or perhaps "climate change control advocate", which would advocate that man is in control of both anthropogenic and natural forcings, the latter which has been in charge for sure prior to about 1950 and likely still is. Inane.
Thank you so much for this reasoned and clear explanation. I was involved in another one of those fruitless conversations on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago with one of those folks that just could not understand or accept your basic point - that one must consider extreme scenarios in planning, but that "extreme" means realistic, not just a horrible fantasy that will never be achieved.
"Scary scenarios" produced using RCP 8.5 contribute nothing to our understanding of earth's climate and our interactions with it. I hope the current Administration will zero funding for such "tactical science". The alarmist narrative has been defended ad nauseum. Enough!
There are important fundamental climate and climate change issues which deserve the funding which has been wasted on "tactical science".
Picking up on this in November after doing some further research on plausibility. You mentioned Steve Schneider - his paper Rasool and Schneider 1971 highlighted a cooling scare that would be far more serious because the colling effect of aerosols would be exponential, rather than logarithmic, as per CO2. Hubert Lamb had also warned on this potential. It made me wonder if there are any plausible scenarios that would see global cooling e.g. RCP -2.5. Surely, if we give aerosol cooling significant weight, then a case can be made for global cooling - and that would be a real "worst case" scenario! Read the intro to Schneider's book "The Genesis Strategy" that, read in 2025, makes reading the rest of the book a waste of time given the famines he predicted didn't happen.
Excellent, thoughtful writeup. It reminds me of a summary often heard in news stories about climate change and emissions mitigation: something to the effect "Scientists say we must reach Net Zero emission by 2100 (or 2050, or 2030) to prevent the worst effects of climate change."
These statements were fundamentally meaningless because "the worst effects" were never defined. The original projections of warming were for 6-8C of warming by 2100; based on this, "the worst effects" have already been prevented. Then, limiting warming to 2C by 2100 would prevent "the worst effects." Then, I suppose that 2C of warming was the new worst case scenario, because we needed to limit warming to 1.5C to prevent "the worst effects."
Excellent article Roger...both concise and though provoking.
RCP8.5 is an amazing piece of decision-based evidence-making, like 97% of scientists, or 80% of what’s left in the oilsands must stay in the ground or we all die.
All are made up datum points that support the narrative and therefor are repeated ad nauseum by the climate/insane.
It doesn’t matter if it’s discredited, only those of us that can read know that. Most nod dully as they go back to following the war with Oceana.
Why not state clearly what Zeke is doing, gaslighting and trying to pretend we can’t see what is right in front of us.
What do you call someone like that?
I know what I call them.
I would love to believe your paper and certainly I agree that RCP8.5 is not valid. However, China has added 200 GW or coal-fired power since 2019. China is currently building 204 GwH of coal fired power plants in China and additional plants in Africa. As of 2025, China has 1,171GwH of coal power capacity (Bryce, 2025). China has also announced plans to expand domestic coal mining by 300 million tons a year and to build a 620-million-ton coal reserve (WSJ, 2022). I am personally very skeptical of reports that China's coal use will peak in 2030 and of the IEA report. You don't build coal-fired powerplants to last five years. Meanwhile India is doubling coal production (Tinker 2024). As Africa begins to electrify, they will use the cheapest most available energy source, which is coal. Coal use has greatly decreased in the U.S. and Europe, but further substantial decreases are unlikely.
So given these factors how confident are you of future coal consumption and how will it affect your curves going forward if you have underestimated it?
"However, China has added 200 GW or coal-fired power since 2019. China is currently building 204 GwH of coal fired power plants in China and additional plants in Africa. As of 2025, China has 1,171GwH of coal power capacity (Bryce, 2025). China has also announced plans to expand domestic coal mining by 300 million tons a year and to build a 620-million-ton coal reserve (WSJ, 2022). I am personally very skeptical of reports that China's coal use will peak in 2030 and of the IEA report. You don't build coal-fired powerplants to last five years."
It doesn't matter how much coal-fired capacity China is building. What matters more is how much more coal they're consuming. And even that doesn't matter much compared to the question of how much more coal the *world* is consuming. And the answer is that world coal consumption is not increasing very fast at all...since 2013, the increase in global coal consumption has averaged less than 1 percent per year:
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/global-coal-production-2000-2025
"As Africa begins to electrify, they will use the cheapest most available energy source, which is coal."
No, Africa won't use coal. Africa has no native coal to speak of, and coal is *not* the "cheapest, most available energy source" for Africa. They would have to ship in coal from distant continents (e.g., Australia, possibly the U.S.). And even if they did, and built power plants on the coasts, they'd have to distribute the electricity from those coal-fired power plants.
Solar electricity is "cheapest, most available energy source" for Africa, and that's what Africa will use to electrify.
P.S. More than 20 years ago, I predicted global CO2 emissions (from electricity production and other industrial processes...not including CO2 changes from land use) would most likely peak circa 2030. And I predicted that it was 90 percent certain that the global CO2 emissions peak would occur sometime between 2020-2050.
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2006/04/complete_set_of.html
Further, my prediction for the most likely value of the peak was 8.8 GtC (gigatonnes as carbon), and that it was 90 percent certain the peak would be between 7.0 and 12.2 GtC. The current value for global CO2 emissions is approximately 37.4 GtCO2 (gigatonnes of CO2)...which when one multiplies by 12/44 (the respective molecular weights of carbon and carbon dioxide), the global CO2 emissions are approximately 10.2 GtC.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissions/
So, basically, I absolutely nailed it. :-)
You state: "It doesn't matter how much coal-fired capacity China is building. What matters more is how much more coal they're consuming. "
So, is it your position that China is building these coal plants, but does not intend to use them? Why is China building 420.8 GW of new coal fired capacity. New 2025 data show my earlier number of 200 GW was way too low. It only referred to plants being actively constructed, not new plants in the planning stages
https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/boom-and-bust-coal-2025/
You cite the IEA chart. But you have to look at the details. The overall rise in coal use is lessened by major reduction of coal use in the U.S. and Europe. The charts show that China's coal use has increased 3.2X since 2000. But using your dates it has increased 1.13X since 2013. India's Coal use has increased 1.46X since 2013. In contrast U.S. coal use has been reduced by 41% during that time and the "rest of the world", (which I assume is largely Europe), it has decreased by 28%. De-coalification is largely complete in many areas of Europe, and the U.S. is not far behind. So, the pace of those reductions will decrease, not increase. Meanwhile China's and India's usage will continue to increase. Again, according to the IEA chart, 51% of all coal burned for energy on the world is burned in China. I have seen estimates as high as 56% in other publications.
Africa's coal reserves are widely variable. Many countries have no coal reserves. In contrast South Africa has the 12th largest coal reserves in the nation, although it is dwarfed by coal reserves in the U.S., China and India. But coal is very easily transportable in huge quantities by ship. Countries with large rivers, such as Egypt, rely largely on Hydropower, but there are only so many rivers and only so many dams that can be built on them. Mini-hydroelectric plants work well for small village with limited electricity needs but they are not feasible for large cities with grid-based systems.
There are a myriad of reasons why solar will not work at scale in Africa, despite the persistent at dream of solar panels covering the Sahara (the surface of which moves). How are you going to build transmission lines from the Sahara to Angola, across borders of countries which may be a war at any given time? And why would you with Angola abundant fossil fuel reserves?
Bu the biggest problem with solar is the same as in developed countries. It is intermittent and not dispatchable. If you build a 100 MW coal plant, you add 100 MW of energy to a grid. However, if you build a 100 MW solar or wind plant, in the U.S. you only add around 5 to 20 MW to the system. The same would be true for Africa
https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/outlook/market-outlook/eye-on-the-market-heliocentrism
The problem is that electricity is the only commodity that is consumed the moment it is created and solar only works when the sun shines. Grid batteries are exceedingly expensive and deplete in 2-4 hours. So, you need back-up thermal generators that are constantly spinning to be ready to create energy when the sun is not shining or even when a cloud passes of the solar panels. And of course they need to create power at night. Otherwise, power grids need to shed load to maintain AC frequency when solar energy decreases. This recently happened in the Iberian Peninsula. A single point of failure at a solar farm caused the collapse of nearly the entire grid in Spain.
The result is that the additional cost of maintaining two grid power sources simultaneously makes solar and wind far more expensive in both undeveloped and developed countries - even with huge subsidies for both wind and solar. I have studied this in detail and could go on for pages.
https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/lfscoe-ssrn-4028640.pdf
You ask, "So, is it your position that China is building these coal plants, but does not intend to use them?"
China has a history of building more coal-fired power plants, but then operating the whole fleet with lower capacity factors.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants
From that (excellent) post:
"In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They’re now running around 50%. We can also see this in operating hours data from the National Energy Administration (NEA) of China."
"If utilisation rates continue to drop, China’s coal use could fall despite it adding more capacity."
"Take an analogy. A CEO could hire lots of new people for their company. But if everyone is forced to switch from full-time to part-time contracts, the total hours worked by the company might be lower despite adding a bunch of new recruits."
So it's not that the new plants won't be used at all, it's that the capacity factors of the whole fleet, including the new plants, will continue to be low and declining.
"Meanwhile China's and India's usage will continue to increase. Again, according to the IEA chart, 51% of all coal burned for energy on the world is burned in China. I have seen estimates as high as 56% in other publications."
The thing about both China and India is that they simply don't have the coal reserves to increase usage for even a couple of decades, let alone to continue to increase--or even remain at 2025 values--for the remainder of this century. Coal use in China and India in 2100 will almost certainly be *less* than in 2025, not the same or more.
"There are a myriad of reasons why solar will not work at scale in Africa, despite the persistent at dream of solar panels covering the Sahara (the surface of which moves). How are you going to build transmission lines from the Sahara to Angola, across borders of countries which may be a war at any given time? And why would you with Angola abundant fossil fuel reserves?"
Solar will rule in Africa, not because of large high-voltage lines distributing energy from the Sahara, but because *all* of Africa is continent of excellent solar resources:
https://globalsolaratlas.info/map
Solar will also rule in Africa because transportation in Africa will be electrified (just like the rest of the world), and those battery electric vehicles will be able to both suck electricity out of the grid when the solar input is too high, and put energy into the grid when the solar input is too low.
The electrical grids in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, etc. were all set up to have big power stations and extensive grids to move electricity from those big stations out to individual residences. The grid in Africa has essentially yet to be built, so it will be able to be built in a manner that is optimized for diffuse solar electrical inputs, and automotive batteries to support the grid.
"Worst case scenarios" are merely fodder for mental onanism by climate scientists. It's not what happens but what a community, nation or society does about what happens that's truly important. Stress testing at each level of government is essential (as you point out).
In a paper I wrote on stress testing ("Stress Testing to Assess Recovery from Extreme Events." Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 18 (2021): 151-176.) I point out that "disasters have direction." In other words, physical events like hurricanes attack a community's physical assets. This then cascades down into economic and social impacts. This implies that a disaster for one community may not be a disaster for another depending on the resistance and redundancy of its assets. Put simply, my worst case may not be the same as yours.
But a properly designed stress test does a lot more than just look at impacts, it looks at recovery. Can we recover? How long might it take? What resources will it require? If we can't recover, what do we need to do to reduce impacts? Looking at scenarios simply can't supply answers to these questions.
Thank for these insights. If I understand correctly you are saying that the brodder context matter in terms of what Sofiemyr at large would be under these assumed futures.
I hav argued alene similar lines in terms of the emissions per capita. If you compare a country with, say, 3 tonnes per capita to one with 9 tonnes per capita it seems a lot is left out if you do not compare the standard of living at the same time. What is your take on this?
It’s not just standard of living, it’s where you live too. I visited colombia last July, houses aren’t insulated whereas here in canada we insulate heavily and yet use more energy just to stay alive than people in colombia use for the rest of their daily needs.
That’s also why immigration isn’t a zero sum game.
Every immigrant from equatorial regions to canada increases their emissions a magnitude just to avoid freezing to death.
Yes, the atgument is finally starting the move, too slowly, to reality. Thanks for pushing in thecrightvdirection. Even ChatGPT admits rcp8.5 is bs
Trump’s wording is perhaps not the best, but you spent the rest of the article essentially agreeing with him. Not good or bad, just an observation.
I am not surprised with the number of Google docs finds of articles referencing RCP8.5. I also noticed that most articles dealing with scenarios chose this one to use. Saying the climate community has moved beyond this is a cop out. I suspect when new scenarios come out, the community will choose the highest (most extreme) scenarios.
Also, choosing RCP8.5 gave license to imply extreme climate impacts (hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, etc.). Even though, as you’ve pointed out, there isn’t evidence to support it.
It is like a required touchstone to dump on Trump to maintain the "crowd" approval.
"The political importance associated with climate scenarios means that those holding a tight grip on their creation today will be unlikely to open up that process to a more democratic approach to thinking about our collective futures and the different paths ahead."
For these people, the "worst case climate scenario" is obvious. It's the one where they lose control over the narrative.
It’s one where they have to get a real job because there is no emergency.
And who is looking to hire fatally flawed “scientists”?
Anthropogenically forced climate change is a product of 8+ billion people (and ~10 billion by 2100) engaged in economic activities that require energy to ensure their survival. Future emission scenarios (worst case and otherwise) should be in the hands of experts (yes, credentialed and experienced experts—the ones often discounted by a segment of commenters here) in population dynamics, economics, energy, sociology and political science.
Climate scientists, should not be involved with setting the scenarios. There needs to be a kind of firewall between the emission scenario creators and the emission scenario analysts. Scenario creation should be taken out of the remit of IPCC.
Global population by 2100 may be 8.8 billion. The UN tends to estimate higher than does the Wittgenstein Center and the IMHE.
Sorry, it sounds great but it won't work. And tge vast majority ofvthe credentialed are useless.
In terms of worst case scenario, it should be clear we need to move beyond the narrow focus on emissions and even a radiative forcing expressed as global temperature anomalies.
Two types of framing were proposed by Fussel 2009 and O’Brien 2005 as summarized in
https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/b-18preface.pdf
They introduced “outcome vulnerability” and “contextual vulnerability” as two distinct structures in which to assess worst case scenarios. The current RCP type narrow focus is, unfortunately, an example of outcome vulnerability and thus is not inclusive of the spectrum of major environmental and social risks.
What's a "climate advocate". Who doesn't advocate for climate? Perhaps "climate change advocate"... well some advocate that the climate should be stable. Although the climate is always changing. Or perhaps "climate change control advocate", which would advocate that man is in control of both anthropogenic and natural forcings, the latter which has been in charge for sure prior to about 1950 and likely still is. Inane.
Thank you so much for this reasoned and clear explanation. I was involved in another one of those fruitless conversations on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago with one of those folks that just could not understand or accept your basic point - that one must consider extreme scenarios in planning, but that "extreme" means realistic, not just a horrible fantasy that will never be achieved.
"Scary scenarios" produced using RCP 8.5 contribute nothing to our understanding of earth's climate and our interactions with it. I hope the current Administration will zero funding for such "tactical science". The alarmist narrative has been defended ad nauseum. Enough!
There are important fundamental climate and climate change issues which deserve the funding which has been wasted on "tactical science".