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Just how bad will climate change get? The only way to know is to fund basic research

Predictions of global warming are uncertain. That’s why we need to keep finding out how the climate system works.
By
  1. Tim Palmer

    1. Tim Palmer is an emeritus professor of climate science at the University of Oxford, UK, and author of The Primacy of Doubt (2022).

How seriously should people be taking climate change? United Nations secretary-general António Gutteres considers it an existential threat. Yet, US President Donald Trump has decreed it a hoax. On 29 July, a US Department of Energy (DOE) report by a group of contrarian climate scientists concluded that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed, and excessively aggressive mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial” (see go.nature.com/4amktth).

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Nature 644, 308 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-02508-8

References

  1. Goessling, H. F., Rackow, T. & Jung, T. Science 387, 68–73 (2024).

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  2. Schneider, T., Kaul, C. M. & Pressel, K. G. Nature Geosci. 12, 163–167 (2019).

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  3. Palmer, T. The Primacy of Doubt (Basic Books, 2022).

    Google Scholar 

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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