Nature has retracted a headline-grabbing climate-economics study after critics found flawed data that massively inflated its predicted global economic collapse. The New York Times reports: The decision came after a team of economists noticed problems with the data for one country, Uzbekistan, that significantly skewed the results. If Uzbekistan were excluded, they found, the damages would look similar to earlier research (PDF). Instead of a 62 percent decline in economic output by 2100 in a world where carbon emissions continue unabated, global output would be reduced by 23 percent.
Of course, erasing more than 20 percent of the world's economic activity would still be a devastating blow to human welfare. The paper's detractors emphasize that climate change is a major threat, as recent meta analyses have found, and that more should be done to address it -- but, they say, unusual results should be treated skeptically. "Most people for the last decade have thought that a 20 percent reduction in 2100 was an insanely large number," said Solomon Hsiang, a professor of global environmental policy at Stanford University who co-wrote the critique published in August. "So the fact that this paper is coming out saying 60 percent is off the chart."
Of course, erasing more than 20 percent of the world's economic activity would still be a devastating blow to human welfare. The paper's detractors emphasize that climate change is a major threat, as recent meta analyses have found, and that more should be done to address it -- but, they say, unusual results should be treated skeptically. "Most people for the last decade have thought that a 20 percent reduction in 2100 was an insanely large number," said Solomon Hsiang, a professor of global environmental policy at Stanford University who co-wrote the critique published in August. "So the fact that this paper is coming out saying 60 percent is off the chart."
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