FACT FOCUS: Trump distorts recent revisions of scientific projections of global warming

Audio By Carbonatix

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump recently blasted the accuracy of global warming projections in a Truth Social post that itself painted a distorted view of the science, projections and how the international community discusses climate policy.

Every several years, the United Nations produces massive scientific reports on what's happening and likely to happen with human-caused global warming. Scientists update some of the scenarios used to make future projections. One key control knob, which determines the amount and impact of future climate change, is carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. The more carbon pollution, the more global warming, so scientists base their projections on a buffet of potential scenarios.

Those scenarios triggered the president's social media post over the weekend. Here's a closer look at the facts:

___

TRUMP: “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!”

THE FACTS: Trump was referring to a set of projections from 2011 from a group of scientists associated with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that were updated in a study published in a scientific journal this spring. The update found that the old worst case scenario — called RCP8.5 — was implausible.

The changes prompted scientists and non-scientists who downplay the harms or even deny the science of climate change to criticize in social media the international panel of climate scientists' decades of work, which won a Nobel Prize. And it prompted mainstream climate scientists to explain the necessity for including unlikely scenarios and to point out that the change also reflects how the world has dramatically increased cleaner energy use, such as solar and wind power and electric cars. That has caused soaring carbon emissions to practically flatten.

Even when it was created 15 years ago, that worst case scenario was unlikely — there were other scenarios that were considered more likely. But the most extreme scenario was still possible if the world went on a fossil fuel heavy binge, in particular continuing to use coal, the most dirty fossil fuel, in a big way. It projected an end of the century warming of about 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) compared to the mid 1800s.

It was not alarmism, said climate scientist Detlef Van Vuuren of Utrecht University, lead author of the new study laying out future scenarios, and Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

Even with the lowest amount warming projected “we enter danger,” Rockström said. “We enter danger both from extreme events (such as floods, heat waves and droughts) but also from risks of crossing tipping points” such as loss of coral and glaciers.

The now-jettisoned scenario was “a relevant low-probability high-risk scenario” with a role to help governments “be prepared with the possible risks of climate change. For instance, living in the Netherlands — a country possibly vulnerable to flooding — I would not like my government to only look at the best-guess scenario, but also explore what the risks are,” Van Vuuren said.

"The risks of climate change have not disappeared. The good news is that we did not follow the most dramatic emission pathway. However, we are still heading towards a future with significant climate impacts; a future that we should avoid,'' Van Vuuren added.

It's a future of suffering and more deaths, but was never about outright destroying the planet, said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald.

Nine out of 10 climate scientists interviewed by The Associated Press said the worst case scenario that was jettisoned was unlikely but still plausible when it first came out. But they said that has changed because of a boom in carbon-free wind and solar energy technologies that has made them cheaper at times than fossil fuels.

Dropping the old worst case scenario is because “we are making progress in slowing climate change with a well-established affordable range of solutions — especially, solar, wind, battery storage, and electrified transportation,” said University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck.

___

TRUMP: "My administration will always be based on TRUTH, SCIENCE, and FACT!”

THE FACTS: A signature Trump administration move on climate was initially justified by a report that was presented as a scientific document that scientists said was inaccurate and was then ditched.

In July 2025, the Trump administration announced it would repeal an Obama-era scientific finding by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that climate change was endangering America's public health. To back it up, the Department of Energy issued a 151-page report by its Climate Working Group, saying climate change was not that harmful.

Dozens of scientists told the AP that the Trump justification document was filled with errors, bias and distortion.

The National Academy of Sciences, created by President Abraham Lincoln to advise the federal government on science issues, issued a quick report disputing the Trump document and saying “human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change harm the health of people in the United States.” Separately, a group of 85 scientists wrote a letter saying the Trump claims “are misleading or outright wrong.”

When the Trump administration officially revoked the EPA endangerment finding in February, it did not include the science justification from the Department of Energy that scientists had criticized.

___

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.