The fallout from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ruling that computer model high emissions pathway RCP8.5 is “implausible” is only just beginning. Most mainstream media fearmongering stories over the last 15 years need to be moved into the junk file, as do the increasingly shrill sandwich-board pronouncements of King Charles and Sir David Attenborough. But the rot goes much deeper than ill-informed public comment, although that alone has been enormously influential in promoting the Net Zero fantasy. Activist-ridden science bodies such as the UK Met Office have brazenly used RCP8.5 to flam up weather predictions which in turn has led to onerous requirements being placed on British industry and finance. Politicians have been convinced by patently ridiculous claims and Net Zero rules and regulations have cascaded through the economy and society.
All the politicised predictions need to be junked and all the resulting regulations reconsidered with a view to abolition. They are all based on assumptions that many at the time said were ridiculous and have now been officially marked as not wanted on voyage. Those inclined to be uncharitable might suggest it was all a hoax from start to finish.
In 2022, the Met Office published its latest ‘UK Climate Projections Report‘ (UKCP18) and claimed it provided users “with the most recent scientific evidence on projected climate change with which to plan”. Many words come to mind to describe the output of computer models, none of which include ‘evidence’. In fact, the Met Office made a feature of its deliberate use of RCP8.5, highlighting its findings in bold type and describing them as “plausible”. These plausible projections, a more accurate description might be laughable, suggested summers and winters in the UK by 2070 could be up to 5.1°C and 3.8°C warmer respectively. More bold claims suggested summer rainfall could decrease by up to 45%, with winter precipitation increasing by 39%. Severe droughts and floods would inevitably follow.
The Met Office concludes: “Governments will make use of UKCP18 to inform its adaption and mitigation planning and decision-making.” Unfortunately, they probably did.
The science writer Roger Pielke Jr. was the first to spot the IPCC’s rejection of RCP8.5, calling it “the most significant development in climate research in decades”. He said that the scenario described “impossible futures”, although the results have dominated climate research, headlines and policy for the best part of two decades. Helped also by the reporting in the Daily Sceptic which went viral across social media, the IPCC finding is firmly established in the public domain. But, notes Pielke, remarkably there has not been a peep from major US or international English language mainstream media outlets.
The New York Times is said to be perhaps the most prominent home for promoting news stories based on studies that rely on RCP8.5. It has said nothing, likewise the BBC and the Guardian. Green Blob-funded Climate Brief has covered RCP8.5 more than perhaps any other English language publication, but again silence reigns. Pielke is led to observe: “The outlets most invested in their longstanding promotion of RCP8.5 have the most to lose from a clear-eyed accounting of what its retirement means for science, policy and their own coverage.”
Nevertheless, there have been some rare sightings of mainstream coverage. The Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant published a front page story headed ‘UN Climate Panel Drops Doomsday Scenario’. The writer of the story Maarten Keulemans later posted on X:
Also in Europe, the Berliner Zeitung ran an article suggesting that “extreme climate scenarios played too large a role in public debate for too long”. Another German publication Die Welt also picked up the story, observing: “A lobby made RCP8.5 famous: the most sensationalist of all climate scenarios has determined scientific studies, media and politics – yet it is unrealistic. Now it is actually being phased out”.
Two members of that ‘lobby’ are the main science publications Nature and Science. In recent years it has sometimes been suggested that climate scientists have moved on from RCP8.5 but the evidence suggests the popular climate crackpipe is difficult to put down. Pielke notes that so far in 2026, more than 2,600 studies have been published using the high emission scenarios, and tens of thousands before that. Both Nature and Science have thrived on publishing RCP8.5 drivel – it will be interesting to see how they spin the passing of an attention-seeking, grant-manufacturing old friend.
The implications of RCP8.5’s demise are vast. Science and journalism careers will be affected, trust in another branch of politicised science will be diminished, rules and regulations imposing unnecessary financial climate costs will need to be re-written (don’t hold your breath), while the promoters of Net Zero will lose a vital fearmongering weapon propping up their Great Reset fantasy. Watch this space.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.
Of course, the BBC, Guardian and the Met Office have said nothing about RCP8.5’s demise. This would mean that they would have to admit that they have been lying to the British public for decades. This would mean that all of those appalling deniers were right all along and that just cannot be true in their fantasy world. In a sane world, everybody at these organisations who spouted the garbage stories based on RCP8.5 would have to be sacked and that just wouldn’t do.
Now they just need to wake up to the fact that ANY climate scenario that is based on human emissions of CO2….. is nonsense.
There is little doubt that the UK establishment will do all they can to hide this fact. With Red Ed in charge, nothing will change – the BBC, Grauniad and Met Office will ignore it and the UK will carry on with its disastrous policies.
To give benefit of the doubt where it might not be deserved, it is a plausible argument that they did not lie, that the were misled (brainwashed) and got emotionally carried away with the hyperbole.
That said, should they continue with the RCP8.5 reclassification as bogus as chicken lips, then lying comes to the top of the list.
The problem of doom loops and the loopies-
Scientists find way to avoid ‘model collapse’ that could destroy AI
In the end the doomsters disappeared up their own fundamental orifarse.
Worth the read.
I was already aware that AI uses the lowest evidentiary standard, “preponderance of the evidence” and that its primary source is the internet where replication is rampant on a model of a nuclear chain reaction (going viral, for example). It is also well known that publications copy and republish other publications with just enough word smithing to avoid copy right laws.
So if one report is republished at 100 different sites and another only makes it to one, AI will choose the 100 as more credible. AI does not have judgement or morality or consciousness or intuition or inspiration. It can only gather and pattern match what already exists.
What does the demise of RCP8.5 do to Friederike Otto’s “weather attribution” nonsense ?
He will likely attribute it to climate change. 🙂
bnice:
It will do nothing to attribution.
The Alarmists saw the RCP8.5 demise coming, so “Attribution Science” will be their new mantra. Since “AS” is sufficiently arcane & appears “sciencey”, they will run with it even though it is predicated on the same suspect models, uncertainties & biases that will be compared to another modeled alternate universe [without CO2] and presto! — CO2 is still gonna kill us all.
Roger Pielke, Jr. has written that the RCP8.5 replacement, although more realistic, is still not without its controversial parameters [see population growth].
Likely, AR7 will quietly expunge the AR6 cautions to using attribution; not because the science has changed [it hasn’t] but there is political necessity to keep the “crisis” going. Funding the climate-industrial complex depends upon it!
New Zealand is a devout worshipper at the 8.5 RCP shrine.
It will take at least three years before it will stand any chance of being dropped.
I’m afraid it will not help. The problem is that the climate movement is wedded to policies which are useless and ineffective even if there is a pending climate crisis. The discovery that there is not one will not change their views. The policies will still be pointless and useless, but they will still keep on keeping on with them.
You can see this in the UK. Ed Miliband introduced the Climate Change Act, and Theresa May strengthened it, at the peak of the climate scare. It was then supposed to be saving the planet, which it obviously could not considering that the UK only emits 1-2% of global emissions. And no-one ever explained what the rationale for it was. An absolute hysterical mania, a Labour and a Conservative legislature passing both the Act and the amendments with almost complete unanimity and (in May’s case) without even taking a vote.
But over time climate ceased to be mentioned, and is now no longer talked about as the rationale for UK Net Zero. By way of Johnson’s claim that the UK was going to become the Qatar of wind, its changed to the equally absurd claim that Net Zero will produce lower cost and more secure energy for the UK.
The climate movement will keep on demanding Net Zero and the conversion of the economies to wind and solar regardless of what the science claims about the climate are, and regardless of what the evidence is for the feasibility and cost effectiveness of the program.
There are only two things that will stop the energy agenda among left politicians. One would be a prolonged winter blackout of some large industrialized economy. The UK is a leading candidate for delivering this in the next few years. The other is a visit from the IMF due to a national financial crisis caused by the expense of the program. The UK is also in line to be the first past the post on this too.
Cracks in the agenda are appearing on the right. But so far there is no evidence of it being abandoned on the left or center-left. Miliband in the UK announces madder schemes every month, and the governing Labour Party nods. I am afraid that the man-made climate crisis is approaching at some speed. Only it will not be caused by CO2 emissions, and it won’t show up in weather. It will be caused by idiotic political decisions, and it will show up as blackouts and bankruptcy.
The weather meanwhile will continue to be what UK weather has always been, variable.
I recall a movie about the battle of Waterloo.
In it, a British private captured a pig with intention of feeding his platoon (and himself).
He was accosted by Wellington. The private gave a lame explanation about protecting the pig or some other such nonsense. He was grilled at length by Wellington but held to his story.
In the end, Wellington directed the private be promoted to Corporal because he knew how to defend an indefensible position.
So, yes. You are correct.
Their reputations and livelihoods are on the line and they will not confess to having been wrong as such high costs.
In their own words, per https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/19/2627/2026/
IMHO, sadly, they have conceded nothing, or nearly so.
The BAU label (‘business-as-usual’) label was never their baustein; they assume no responsibility for selection (misuse) of high-end scenarios by downstream users, much less media reports.
But don’t believe me, check for yourself the pretty graph Fig. 1; the new & improved set still include one that should lead to ~ +5 C (vs. pre-industrial, nearly +4 C above present-day).*
If Pielke et al. want to use this report, six years past the initial (2020) concession, to declare victory & go home (move on), that’s his choice.
The IPCC admitting that RCP8.5 is utterly ridiculous…er, “implausible’ is a good first step. In fact, RCP6, RCP4.5, and RCP2.6 are also implausible. But, baby steps.
Several suicidal Western governments have enacted emissions targets limiting carbon dioxide emissions—and they’re realizing they can’t hit those targets—but China and India keep increasing emissions and negating the inconsequential efforts of those self-flagellating governments. And the result of the continued increase of global CO2 emissions? Measured warming and sea level trends in the range predicted by RCP2.6, the scenario that assumes concerted global effort (even by China and India) to reduce CO2 emissions and start decreasing global emissions starting in 2020, 6 years ago. Which obviously hasn’t happened and isn’t likely to for many years or decades.
In other words, emissions trends match the “business-as-usual” RCP8.5 assumptions, but the measured warming and sea level trends match those projected to result from the stringent emissions restrictions of the RCP2.6 scenario. Simply put, the projections of all the RCP scenarios are wrong. Very wrong. The climate models are worthless. The so-called “science” driving the models isn’t science. It’s elaborate guesswork biased to fit the beliefs of the people who wrote the model code. It’s nonsense in the service of a political agenda.
It is simply curve fitting an assumed causal relationship of CO2 and temperature to manipulated historical records, which are incomplete to begin with.
From experience, I know that curve fitting via “control knobs” to align with prior data makes the prediction outputs about the future much, much less reliable.
What is missing is the sensitivity analysis of each independent variable to the output. Pre-PC partial differentiation was done, time consuming, and mind numbing, but useful and required.
You are right. It’s not science, and it has never been about science. But it does not even qualify to be called “guesswork”. The IPCC reports are built on “expert judgment”, and the judgment 100% depends on the (carefully) pre-selected experts. The expert selection process fully pre-determines the assessment scope/outcome and it’s entirely under control of a very small group with vested interests.
It’s not just China and India but the whole of South East Asia that is expanding their use of fossil fuels, especially coal. About 50% of global coal demand is used for electricity generation in these countries and the outlook for coal depends to a great extent on their needs for electricity.
IEA ‘World Energy Outlook 2025’ (Nov 2025)
I suppose we need some bright people to scan all the research papers to evaluate the number of papers and authors that can be dismissed from consideration due to thus 8.5 bias.
The MSM, BBC ÇNN etc need a review to see how many papers they promoted with this 8.5 nonsense.
Can I get a $10B grant? I will do it. /s
You have my vote…..
The MSM will simply say nothing about the 8.5 being debunked by the organisation that championed it the IPCC.
they will simply adopt the second generation reports it prompted even though those are equally junk science.
Implausible. “You keep using that word.” (Apologies to The Princess Bride movie.)
Skeptics of climate alarm should be careful not to fall for the subtle subtext of this change. The aspect of the RCP8.5 scenario being reported now as “implausible” is the assumed trend of emissions of CO2, not the assumed influence of incremental CO2 concentration as a climate “forcing.”
Stop taking the bait! By claiming that the absurdly high emissions of RCP8.5 were the central problem with the claims of a “climate” crisis, skeptics are conceding that moderate emissions should still be expected to drive “warming” – just not so much of it.
What is truly implausible physically is to expect incremental CO2 to operate as a climate system “forcing” at all! Why? Because the computed increase in IR absorbing power, say, in the 2XCO2 case, is massively overwhelmed by dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation, throughout the depth of the troposphere. The modelers know this! There is no good physical reason remaining to expect a perceptible accumulation of energy on land and in the oceans as sensible heat gain as a result. No one knows that emissions of CO2, from using natural hydrocarbons as fuel, are capable of driving ANY portion of ANY trend of climate variables.
More explanation with references here.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PDJP3F3rteoP99lR53YKp2fzuaza7Niz?usp=drive_link
More concisely, here.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1knv0YdUyIgyR9Mwk3jGJwccIGHv38J33/view?usp=drive_link
Thank you for caring about this issue.
Thank you. That perspective is invaluable!
By celebrating the “implausible” was are actually giving unearned credibility to the rest of the nonsense.
I like the expression you used, “unearned credibility.” It certainly applies to any time-step-iterated, pre-stabilized, parameter-tuned-to-hindcast, large-grid, discrete-layer computer model that has ever been used to generate a temperature projection scenario from so-called GHG “forcings.”
Why does it matter. Even if the emissions forecast of 8.5 happened, it would have no impact on climate. CO2 does not impact climate except by a trivial amount.
Correct. It does not impact the environment (climate is an average of weather), but it does impact the political climate.
Sparta:
Yes!
And if the public finally realizes the the Alarmists have been lying for the past 15+ years about a “climate crisis” it should be easier to convince them that the Alarmists are lying again, plus their co-conspirators [mainstrem media, politicians & environmental NGOs] are not to be trusted either. One can only hope!
Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are in essence software use cases. Use cases are used to test software during independent verification and validation testing (IV&V) something none of the climate model software programs have ever been subject to. IV&V is done to verify the performance requirements are accomplished and the margins are verified, functions and timing and resource usage.
Models are tools used to better understand a phenomenon or system.
Model predictions/projections must be independently validated through testing to establish plausibility or usefulness.
I use models to simulate circuits. Every node in the model has established tolerance and quantified environmental effects (mostly temperature).
I then build the circuit and test it. If it matches the simulation outputs, I have high confidence the circuit is performing as desired.
Even so, I have to go through extensive qualification testing to ensure the design margins meet requirements.
The climate models do none of that and their “predictions” or nothing better than linear extrapolations on a time varying system. One can take a snippet of a sine wave and use linear extrapolation to get whatever result one wants, but it ignores the basic sine wave doing so.
Ah, but the science was settled a quarter century ago and that is why we need to constantly improve the models? Curious, isn’t it.
It took me a while to notice this, but RCP 8.5 and SSP5-8.5 are, in essence, ways of producing Hansen’s Scenario A curve.
Similarly for his Scenarios B and C.
Sir, with all due respect, have you ever believed that the thief would admit that s/he is a thief even if caught red-handed? No criticism otherwise.
If the payout was sufficient, the thief will confess to anything.
It’s called a plea deal.
“Payout” is the keyword here. Thank you.
Well, how many articles about RCP8.5 were posted here this week?
I commented on some of them that CMIP6 showed without any doubt that the improvement resolution and physics (independently and together) change the output of models significantly.
This means that older models are all wrong!
Additionally, high-co2 sensitive CMIP6 models are affected by a programming error:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2025MS004967
“”An inappropriate ice number limiter in the CESM2 microphysics scheme was discovered, and some simulations indicate that the high ECS may be partially attributable to this inappropriate limiter.”‘
All global climate models do not compare well enough with reality to draw these politicized conclusions once the resulting uncertainties and errors are considered properly.
Good catch.
However, I find it quite interesting that anyone can establish a Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity to an energy system as diverse and the earth, especially since it never achieves equilibrium. Since the planet rotates, it can never achieve equilibrium. And climate is an average of weather over decades.
ECS is another of those word combinations intended only to be impressive so all that follows will be accepted on the basis of Appeal to Authority.
Well I agree, it is a mathematical artifact, but if course you can just average over everything, space and time. I also agree that the more you average, the less meaningful the result will be, but if you were to measure and model numbers like the ECS or PA (planetary albedo, the rave at the latest RealClimate article, where G. Schmidt actually tries to sell CMIP6 results without any uncertainty again.. apparently he will never learn) with the required precision, it could be a valid model test. I think my frequent insistence of needed accounting for all present uncertainties makes clear what I think about the current state of this.
Like many of those tests, a model that passes it does not become correct, but failing reveals fatal flaws.
Which is another thing people at RealClimate do not seem to get.
CMIP5 and older models had significant flaws in resolution and physics, which was found later (as the better CMIP6 models emerged), the resulting uncertainty needs to be addressed, making all older publications omitting this obsolete, it is as simple as that.
It is a fact that they could tune old models to create output matching real world parameters at least sometimes – this test was passed.
The test if the resolution sufficed or the physics was correct they failed.
Likewise there were some recent papers about solids in the atmosphere
– dust particle size distribution
– falling ice
and CMIP6 models failing to describe those, this means all publications discussing the latest model results are flawed as well. It is up to them to show in some way that this would not matter.
In real science flawed articles are withdrawn until corrected.
The economic forecasting equivalent to this is alternative low scenarios of the macroeconomy showing a standing prediction of Great Depression 2. Only the truly irresponsible in government, media, and professional associations would make it the primary policy goal with alternative purposes in mind. The good news is it causes self identification of the failed institutions and political parties.
Within a year, they will be making the exact same predictions using the other scenarios and will be pretending that they never used 8.5 for anything.
You understand.