What Actually Happened

Scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed journal Geoscientific Model Development have recommended phasing out the RCP8.5 emissions scenario — also updated as SSP5-8.5 — from future UN-backed climate modeling. Their reasoning: advances in renewable energy adoption and shifting global emissions trends have made the scenario's core assumptions implausible.

The RCP8.5 scenario was the most extreme projection in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) modeling toolkit. It assumed runaway fossil fuel use continuing at maximum intensity through 2100, producing projections of catastrophic temperature rises, mass crop failures, massive sea level increases, and in some extrapolations, extinction-level disruptions.

According to GB News, the researchers argue future modeling should encompass a broader range of scenarios — including both more optimistic and more catastrophic outcomes — rather than treating RCP8.5 as the default worst case.

Trump's Response

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on May 17, 2026: "GOOD RIDDANCE! After 15 years of Dumocrats promising that 'Climate Change' is going to destroy the Planet, the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that its own projections (RCP8.5) were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!"

Trump continued: "For far too long Climate Activism has been used by Dumocrats to scare Americans, push horrible Energy Policies, and fund BILLIONS into their bogus research programs."

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin backed the president, saying — according to Patriot Fetch — "The president is absolutely right and we've seen it in the name of climate change, these left-wing policies willing to cause extreme economic pain for people."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed back, calling Trump's characterization "total disinformation."

What the Science Says

Trump is not wrong that RCP8.5 is being retired as implausible. That is a real scientific development, documented in a real journal. The researchers said it themselves.

But Trump is overstating what this means. The IPCC and mainstream climate science have not declared climate change a hoax. Moderate warming scenarios — RCP4.5, SSP2, and others — remain active, supported by data, and still project meaningful temperature increases and environmental disruption this century. Dropping the most extreme scenario is not the same as dropping climate science.

The doomsday version was overstated. The base concern remains valid.

What Mainstream Media Is Getting Wrong

Left-leaning outlets are largely ignoring this story or burying it.

RCP8.5 wasn't some obscure footnote — it was the scenario most frequently cited in major policy arguments, media coverage, and climate activist campaigns. The New York Times, Washington Post, and others repeatedly used RCP8.5-based projections as the de facto future if emissions weren't slashed immediately. Studies based on RCP8.5 generated headlines about uninhabitable cities, submerged coastlines, and food system collapse — often without noting it was the most extreme edge case, not the expected baseline.

Now that the scientists themselves are saying it was too extreme to use as a baseline, much of the press has not reported on it.

Fox News is doing the opposite — framing this as total vindication for climate skepticism broadly. That's also inaccurate. Reporting what Trump said about it is appropriate. Treating the retirement of one extreme scenario as proof that the entire field of climate science was fraudulent is not supported by the data.

The Accountability Question

For more than a decade, billions of dollars in research funding, policy decisions, and regulatory action were justified using a scenario that researchers now call implausible.

How many infrastructure mandates, energy regulations, and international agreements cited RCP8.5 projections as their scientific foundation? How much of that needs to be revisited?

These are questions the press should be asking, and few are.

The scientific process worked here. Researchers updated their models based on new data. The problem is not the scientists who corrected the record. The problem is the policymakers and media figures who treated the most extreme scenario as settled fact for 15 years and used it to justify trillion-dollar agendas.

What It Means for Regular People

If you've been told your energy bills have to skyrocket, your gas stove has to go, and your car has to be electric — all to prevent the RCP8.5 apocalypse — you deserve to know that scenario is now being retired as unrealistic.

That doesn't mean climate policy is wrong across the board. It means some of it was built on the most extreme projection available, and now that projection is off the table.

Neither major political party has addressed what this means for existing policies built on that foundation.