Top Journal Retracts Study Predicting Catastrophic Climate Toll

6 comments

1. # Top Journal Retracts Study Predicting Catastrophic Climate Toll

   While growing evidence shows that carbon emissions are harming the economy, the journal Nature found that an outlier paper had deep flaws.

   In April 2024, the prestigious journal Nature [released a study](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07219-0) finding that climate change would cause far more economic damage by the end of the century than previous estimates had suggested. The conclusion grabbed headlines and citations around the world, and was incorporated in risk management scenarios used by central banks.

   On Wednesday, Nature retracted it, adding to the debate on the extent of climate change’s toll on society.

   The decision came after a team of economists noticed problems with the data for one country, Uzbekistan, that significantly skewed the results. If Uzbekistan were excluded, they found, the damages would look similar to [earlier research](https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/nature15725.pdf). Instead of a 62 percent decline in economic output by 2100 in a world where carbon emissions continue unabated, global output would be reduced by 23 percent.

   Of course, erasing more than 20 percent of the world’s economic activity would still be a devastating blow to human welfare. The paper’s detractors emphasize that climate change is a major threat, as recent meta [analyses](https://policyintegrity.org/publications/detail/methodology-matters-a-careful-meta-analysis-of-climate-damages) [have](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2410733121) [found](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421523005074), and that more should be done to address it — but, they say, unusual results should be treated skeptically.

   “Most people for the last decade have thought that a 20 percent reduction in 2100 was an insanely large number,” said Solomon Hsiang, a professor of global environmental policy at Stanford University who co-wrote [the critique](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09320-4) published in August. “So the fact that this paper is coming out saying 60 percent is off the chart.”

   Retractions have become more common in recent years, according to [Retraction Watch](https://retractionwatch.com/), an organization that tracks corrections in scientific journals. But they are still rare, amounting to about one in 500 articles published.

   Economists have long struggled to incorporate granular, sometimes subtle impacts of climate change into models that forecast far into the future, especially when combining them with something as complex as the global economy.

   The study was led by Leonie Wenz, an economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, and Maximilian Kotz, who was a postdoctoral researcher at the institute. The team devised several novel techniques to more comprehensively capture climate change’s economic ramifications.

   They used a painstakingly compiled [data set](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02323-8) of economic conditions in geographic areas smaller than countries, like states and provinces. They incorporated a range of climatic conditions, such as rainfall and heat waves, rather than just average temperatures. And they took into account the effects of extreme weather events over a decade, rather than assuming they dissipated quickly.

2. Counting down until the fossil fuel industry jumps on this and claims we can’t trust any such research, in 3, 2, ….

3. “Assume no Uzbekistan”

   From the classic joke:

   >a physicist, a chemist, and an economist who were stranded on a desert island with no implements and a can of food. The physicist and the chemist each devised an ingenious mechanism for getting the can open; the economist merely said, “Assume we have a can opener”!

4. Accuracy helps those who would listen.

5. Worth remembering the figures from the original article are about hypothetical future global GDP in a scenario with no climate change vs one with severe climate impacts. Gross global GDP is still going to grow to some extent or another

6. [Meanwhile, Uzbeks](https://media.tenor.com/oPbOiUCCg7wAAAAC/were-so-screwed-finished.gif)

Comments are closed.