by K. Killough, Aug 20, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

When a study published last year in the peer-reviewed journal Nature found that climate change would cost the globe $38 trillion per year by 2050 — ultimately reducing GDP by 19% over the next 24 years — many media outlets were quick to jump on it. [emphasis, links added]

“Climate change will make you poorer,” CNN warned. The Guardian reported on the study under the headline, “Climate crisis: average world incomes to diminish by nearly a fifth by 2050.”

Reuters and Forbes also carried articles on the study, and the Associated Press reported that “New study calculates climate change’s economic bite will hit about $38 trillion a year by 2049.”

According to the activist publication Carbon Brief, only one other study received more mentions in the media in 2024.

However, the study — referred to as “the Potsdam study” — has since been found to have serious flaws.

When these are corrected, according to the researchers who uncovered the problems, it reduces the study’s estimate of climate “damages” through 2100 by two-thirds. This means the estimates aren’t statistically different from zero.

The study has been cited by organizations influencing policy across the globe, including the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., cited the study last yearand again in July — both times entering the study into the Congressional Record.

While The Washington Post reported on the errors, none of the other outlets have so far revisited the story.

Flaws called “devastating” to the paper’s conclusions

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