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Climate report says world won't get as hot as feared but will pass warming limit
https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-future-worst-case-best-danger-cc7a20fba4f5b42ce33024e1b781e7c9By SETH BORENSTEIN
Updated 9:05 AM EDT, May 19, 2026
…
The extremes have become less probable in the past several years because of how we power our world. Carbon dioxide, released from the burning of gas, oil and coal, is chiefly responsible for warming. Increasing use of green energies, like solar, wind and geothermal, which don’t emit carbon dioxide, have lowered top end carbon pollution projections. However, because those changes haven’t been fast enough, the bottom end projections have risen.
…
While the upward curve of emissions is flattening, there’s a factor that could still make the older high end temperature estimates come true, Mahowald, Rockstrom and Hare said. That’s because the newest batch of scenarios only look at emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, which is the control knob that humans can turn.
Nature has another knob of its own referred to as climate feedbacks, which humans don’t control. Scientists have had a hard time projecting climate feedbacks, and that can add another half a degree Celsius (nearly a degree Fahrenheit) of warming on top of what’s caused by emissions.
Those feedbacks include release of massive amounts of heat-trapping carbon now being stored in the world’s oceans, in forested areas and in the Amazon, along with changes to ocean currents and cloud reflectivity, Rockstrom said.
Van Vuuren, D. P. et al. The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP7 (ScenarioMIP-CMIP7). Geoscientific Model Development 19, 2627–2656 (2026). https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-2627-2026Updated 9:05 AM EDT, May 19, 2026
…
The extremes have become less probable in the past several years because of how we power our world. Carbon dioxide, released from the burning of gas, oil and coal, is chiefly responsible for warming. Increasing use of green energies, like solar, wind and geothermal, which don’t emit carbon dioxide, have lowered top end carbon pollution projections. However, because those changes haven’t been fast enough, the bottom end projections have risen.
…
While the upward curve of emissions is flattening, there’s a factor that could still make the older high end temperature estimates come true, Mahowald, Rockstrom and Hare said. That’s because the newest batch of scenarios only look at emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, which is the control knob that humans can turn.
Nature has another knob of its own referred to as climate feedbacks, which humans don’t control. Scientists have had a hard time projecting climate feedbacks, and that can add another half a degree Celsius (nearly a degree Fahrenheit) of warming on top of what’s caused by emissions.
Those feedbacks include release of massive amounts of heat-trapping carbon now being stored in the world’s oceans, in forested areas and in the Amazon, along with changes to ocean currents and cloud reflectivity, Rockstrom said.