Why Net-Zero Policies Risk Human Catastrophe and Carbon Dioxide Doesn’t
9 hours ago Guest Blogger 14 Comments
by Angela Wheeler
For years, the CO2 Coalition and independent scientists have warned that the U.S Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) rested on a foundation of sand. Its dramatic projections of catastrophe relied heavily on U.N.-sponsored Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) and its successor SSP5-8.5—both extreme predictions of carbon dioxide emissions that were treated as realistic.
As far back as 2017, scientists noted the far-fetched nature of the U.N. predictions. In August, the Trump administration proposed an amendment to NCA5 that acknowledges its emission forecasts are implausible and must not guide federal policymaking. This is a welcome restoration of scientific integrity.
The amendment, issued under the U.S. Global Change Research Program and aligned with Executive Order 14303, “Restoring Gold Standard Science,” states that results dependent on RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5, or equivalent emission scenarios “should not be used as expected, baseline, business-as-usual, likely, central, or policy-relevant federal planning futures.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/09/02/why-net-zero-policies-risk-human-catastrophe-and-carbon-dioxide-doesnt/
