2026-05-18 15:10 UTC
But due to a breakdown in communication between energy modelers and climate scientists, RCP8.5 got widely (mis)labeled as "business as usual." That framing stuck, and led to inaccurate portrayals of likely futures in a lot of impact research over the past 15 years.
4/11
Replies (1)
-
@hausfath@fediscience.org 2026-05-18 15:10
The right counterfactual isn't RCP8.5. It's the full range of baseline scenarios, which averaged ~3.5C of warming by 2100. Today's medium scenario lands closer to 2.8C. That's ~0.7C of avoided warming from policy + technology. Not the full 1.7C difference from RCP8.5, but still huge.