Thanks to the transition from fossil fuels to clean technologies, what used to be considered the worst-case climate change scenario now appears to be outside the realm of plausibility, climate scientists said in a recent study.
That study made headlines in May when President Donald Trump falsely claimed that climate scientists had admitted that their projections had been wrong, a claim akin to an anti-vaxxer gloating that the official end of the pandemic proved that COVID was never a problem.
And the study contained sobering news: The best-case climate scenario is close to slipping out of reach, and a business-as-usual scenario is still a very dangerous one, with high risks of widespread species extinctions, extreme heat-related illnesses and deaths, and expanding vector-borne diseases like malaria.
World makes progress on climate change
Scientists developed the worst-case climate change scenario known as RCP8.5 nearly 20 years ago.
