[Linkpost] “Does climate science focus on the right temperature range?” by FJehn

This is a link post. As long as we are not in the year 2100, we will not know exactly what path humanity will have taken when it comes to climate change in this century. But we can at least make educated guesses about the trajectory we are on. Given this, it seems that a good amount of climate science is aimed at hopeful temperature ranges below 2°C, which we will likely miss. The focus on below 2°C stems from the aspirational climate targets that humanity has set itself. We have less research on the currently most probable looking temperatures far above 2°C and even less on low probability, but high impact tail risk warming. By tail risk, I mean both the chance of unexpectedly high emissions and the chance of unexpectedly high temperatures from a given level of emissions. This post aims to give an overview of why I think that climate science is at least partly looking in the wrong direction to understand such risks. Reasons for pathways above 2°C First, let's explore why it seems to have gotten more likely again that we will end up in a more than 2°C world. While there has been some [...] ---Outline:(01:07) Reasons for pathways above 2°C(01:36) Green backlash(03:14) Impact of climate policies(04:26) Advocacy against climate action from populist right wing parties(05:47) Political consequences of the green backlash(06:35) Summing it up(07:00) Path dependence(09:07) Hot 2020s(10:52) Do we actually know what might happen in more extreme warming?(10:57) Temperature focus(12:31) Scenario focus(14:37) Exploring tail risk is a good idea actually(17:44) Conclusion(18:59) How to cite(19:14) Endnotes(19:56) References --- First published: November 26th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cAepBNzxzSyw3a5i8/does-climate-science-focus-on-the-right-temperature-range Linkpost URL:https://existentialcrunch.substack.com/p/does-climate-science-focus-on-the --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.