🌊 Breaking Down the Debunked Climate Paper

And what it has in common with the recent pipe bomber story

By Max Frost

“Climate Change to Cause $38 Trillion a Year in Damages by 2049,” Bloomberg declared as fact in an April 2024 headline.

Referencing a shocking new study published in the journal Nature, Bloomberg wrote: “The researchers said cutting emissions and limiting global warming to 2C by the end of the century would be the most cost effective way to reduce further climate damages.”

Axios ran a simultaneous article on the study, headlining: “Climate change may cost $38 trillion a year by 2049.”

The outlet wrote that the research “shines a new light on the patterns and severity of climate change’s economic impacts while bolstering key conclusions from other research.”

And the research went way further than the media: It worked its way into climate strategy, with governments incorporating its data into projections about how much they could justify spending to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Then last week, the study was tossed out, retracted by Nature and disavowed by those who formerly promoted it. In one fell swoop, it was transformed from one of the most influential climate science papers to a cautionary tale.

In today’s deep-dive, we look at what the study said, what influence it had, and why it was retracted.