WASHINGTON — President Trump took a victory lap late Saturday after a prominent international climate change panel backed off using some of the most aggressive doomsday estimates after determining that they were not the most plausible outcomes.
The United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had quietly adjusted its modeling frameworkof a 4–5°C warming by 2100 last month. That framework had underpinned a myriad of other analyses predicting terrifying consequences for greenhouse gas emissions.
“GOOD RIDDANCE! After 15 years of Dumocrats promising that ‘Climate Change’ is going to destroy the Planet, the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that its own projections (RCP8.5) were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!” Trump chided on Truth Social.
President Trump blasted Democratic climate policies after scientists moved away from one of the most extreme global warming scenarios previously used in United Nations-backed climate modeling. REUTERS
The IPCC framework in question was used to forecast a dramatic rise in sea levels, global crop failures, rapid melting of glaciers, and more, which made some hardcore climate change activists fret about future extinction.
But ultimately, scientists cited data and argued that the push towards renewable energies made that scenario less likely.
Trump, who proudly champions a “drill baby, drill” energy policy, has long been skeptical of scientific claims about manmade climate change. Last year, for example, during his address to the United Nations, Trump panned climate change as a “con job.”
“For far too long Climate Activism has been used by Dumocrats to scare Americans, push horrible Energy Polices, and fund BILLIONS into their bogus research programs,” the president added on Truth Social.
“Unlike the Dumocrats, who use Climate Alarmism nonsense to push their GREEN NEW SCAM, my Administration will always be based on TRUTH, SCIENCE, and FACT!”
“GOOD RIDDANCE! After 15 years of Dumocrats promising that ‘Climate Change’ is going to destroy the Planet, the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that its own projections (RCP8.5) were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Bonnie Cash/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
Scientists had ditched their high-end doomsday scenario of the consequences of climate change in favor of seven other possible scenarios. They argued in the Geoscientific Model Development journal that a broader set of models should be used to assess climate change.
“For the 21st century, this range will be smaller than assessed before,” noting that the worst forecasts “have become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emission trends,” the scientists wrote.
Trump has rolled back a slew of Biden and Obama-era climate change policies. In February, for example, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the rollback of an Obama-era anti-greenhouse gas policy.
Trump accused Democrats of using climate fears to justify energy policies and government spending. Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images
Trump’s comments drew criticism from Democrats, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called the remarks “total disinformation.” Matthew McDermott for NY Post
Key figures in the anti-climate change movement have since toned down their rhetoric, with tech tycoon Bill Gates, for example, conceding that global warming won’t cause humanity’s “demise.”
Critics have long pointed to wild predictions, such a a projection that Glacier National Park in Montana would melt by 2020. In 2020, officials had to take down signs about those gloomy warnings after the glaciers didn’t all melt away.
On the other side, scientists have argued that while some of the most dire predictions on climate change haven’t come to fruition, there still is widespread evidence of the Earth warming and the ice caps melting — albeit at a slower rate than some of the most infamous forecasts.