Energy institute launches website criticizing use of 'extreme' climate scenario

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(The Center Square) – The American Energy Institute launched a new website that argues governments, researchers, and other institutions relied on an extreme climate scenario long after scientists questioned its realism.

The website, They-Knew.com, focuses on RCP8.5, a high-emissions climate scenario that researchers have widely used for years to study future warming. 

The American Energy Institute says the scenario drove climate alarmist headlines, government regulations, court filings, and school curriculum before climate researchers concluded it no longer reflected the world's likely path.

The website includes a timeline, source documents, and examples of institutions continuing to use the scenario after scientists raised concerns about it.

One section focuses on the Obama administration’s 2015 "social cost of carbon" analysis. The site says federal officials used RCP8.5 to estimate future climate damages despite later criticism that the scenario overstated likely coal use and emissions growth. Another section tracks what the group calls the scenario's continued use in financial risk reports lawsuits, and other publications after scientists questioned its plausibility.

The website says researchers began publicly questioning RCP8.5 as early as 2017 because it relied on assumptions about future coal use that appeared increasingly unrealistic. It also cites a 2020 paper in the journal *Nature* that argued researchers should stop treating RCP8.5 as a "business as usual" scenario. 

Additionally, the website says the committee developing scenarios for the next United Nations climate assessment declared the scenario "implausible" in April 2026 and removed it from the framework for the next assessment. It also argues that many governments, central banks, courts and educators continued using the scenario after researchers questioned it.

The debate over RCP8.5 has continued beyond the American Energy Institute.

Some researchers say RCP8.5 has become less plausible as energy markets, technology and emissions trends have changed. They say researchers should treat it as an extreme scenario – not the most likely outcome. 

"The site chronicles one of the most consequential scientific integrity failures of the century," the American Energy Institute said in a press release.

The organization said it hopes the website serves as a public record documenting the continued use of RCP8.5 after scientists challenged its assumptions.