The journal Nature has pulled an influential paper that significantly exaggerated the economic impacts of climate change. This paper had been a reference point for central banks globally in forming their risk management scenarios.
Three researchers involved in the study raised concerns on Wednesday, noting “serious” issues in the paper that was originally published in April 2024.
The paper claimed that if carbon emissions continue to decrease at current rates, the global economy would face a striking 62% fall by the year 2100.
However, a different article published in Nature earlier this year indicated that the initial study’s results were heavily influenced by flawed data from just one country, Uzbekistan. Without these figures, the projected economic downturn would only be about 23%. That’s still a considerable decrease, but it doesn’t hit as hard as initially thought.
This inflated figure, which is roughly three times the average estimate, quickly gained traction and was referenced by policymakers worldwide, including those from the World Bank and the OECD.
Furthermore, in the previous year, the Greening the Financial System Network had also adopted this methodology to revise models predicting the economic effects of climate change.
The NGFS, which is a worldwide assembly of central banks and financial regulators with around 150 members across 90 countries—including major institutions like the European Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China—expressed enthusiasm for academic debate and looked forward to new insights into the economic effects of climate change.
They stated that they would keep an eye on advancements in this crucial area and plan to employ the latest methods in their next long-term scenario, set to be released by the end of 2026.
This past summer, the original authors, Maximilian Kotz, Anders Levermann, and Leonie Wentz from Germany’s Potsdam Institute, took a closer look at their work. They tried to address their findings, but ultimately realized that the errors were “too significant to correct,” prompting this retraction.
The authors intend to revise and submit their paper anew, according to Nature. Kotz noted that while the data still supports findings of a “huge economic impact of climate change,” it also underscores the need for ambitious climate policies.
“We should not forget the broader landscape,” Kotz said. Other research has come to similar conclusions regarding the severe economic consequences of climate change.
Wentz also remarked that many studies with varied data and methodologies are highlighting significant economic damage and reinforcing the case for addressing climate change proactively.
