RCP8.5 Has Been Dropped: What It Means — and What It Doesn’t - ClimateRealism

RCP8.5 Has Been Dropped: What It Means — and What It Doesn’t - ClimateRealism

Guest post by CERES Science. The developers of the greenhouse gas emissions scenarios for the IPCC’s next assessment report (AR7) have officially dropped RCP8.5 – the high-emissions pathway long treated as a de facto “business-as-usual” case (Van Vuuren et al. 2026). We at CERES were among the first to criticize the use of RCP8.5 in the peer-reviewed literature (Connolly et al. 2020) and welcome this decision. But, while President Trump’s descr…

RCP8.5 Has Been Dropped: What It Means — and What It Doesn’t

Guest post by CERES Science. The developers of the greenhouse gas emissions scenarios for the IPCC’s next assessment report (AR7) have officially dropped RCP8.5 – the high-emissions pathway long treated as a de facto “business-as-usual” case (Van Vuuren et al. 2026). We at CERES were among the first to criticize the use of RCP8.5 in...