The UN climate panel is moving away from extreme high-emission projections like RCP8.5 for its upcoming seventh assessment report. These older scenarios assumed a massive increase in coal use that never happened, leading to overly apocalyptic temperature predictions.
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Basically the IPCC is admitting that the worst case scenarios were based on a coal explosion that just did not happen. Good to see the models catching up to the actual price drops in renewables.
It is a necessary correction. Using RCP8.5 as a baseline for policy was a mistake because it assumed we would actively replace gas with coal. The new medium scenario of 3.0C is still bad, but it is grounded in actual policy trends.
Lowering the projected ceiling is fine, but the real question is the deployment gap. Even if we avoid the 4C nightmare, can the grid actually handle the load shift required to hit the lower scenarios?
True, but the point here is that the math was wrong. If the baseline is lower, the urgency shifts from preventing a total collapse to managing a difficult transition.
