Retraction Note: The economic commitment of climate change
Summary
The authors have retracted their Nature paper originally published 17 April 2024 because the results were found to be sensitive to errors in the underlying economic data for one country (Uzbekistan) for 1995–1999 and to unaccounted-for spatial auto-correlation. After correcting the Uzbekistan data, controlling for data-source transitions and higher-order trends, and accounting for spatial auto-correlation, the estimates for climate damages by mid-century changed noticeably: the uncertainty range widened (from 11–29% to 6–31%) and the probability that damages diverge across emission scenarios by 2050 fell (from 99% to 90%).
The authors judged these changes too substantial to be handled as a correction and therefore retracted the paper. An updated version with the corrections and full open data/methodology is publicly available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15984134) but has not yet been peer reviewed; the authors plan to resubmit for peer review. They thank colleagues who flagged the issues and all authors agree to the retraction.
Key Points
- The Nature paper on the economic commitment of climate change has been retracted (published as a Retraction Note on 03 December 2025).
- Primary reasons: inaccuracies in Uzbekistan economic data for 1995–1999 and failure to account for spatial auto-correlation in uncertainty estimates.
- Corrections changed key results: mid-century damage uncertainty widened from 11–29% to 6–31% and the probability of divergence across scenarios by 2050 dropped from 99% to 90%.
- The authors concluded the revisions were substantial enough to require retraction rather than a correction.
- An updated, non-peer-reviewed version and open data/methodology are available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15984134); the authors intend to submit a revised manuscript for peer review.
- The authors acknowledge contributions from the scientific community (named colleagues) in identifying the issues.
Why should I read this?
Short version: this is a big deal if you follow climate-economics research. A high-profile Nature paper has been pulled because a single country’s flawed data and a statistical oversight materially changed the conclusions. If you use, cite or build on this work — or care about the robustness of climate damage estimates — you need to know what changed and why.
Author style
Punchy: The retraction underlines how sensitive global estimates can be to local data issues and statistical choices. If you work in climate impact economics, policy or modelling, read the updated materials — this affects how confident we should be about mid-century damage projections.
Context and relevance
Why it matters: estimates of economic damages from climate change inform policy, adaptation planning and cost–benefit assessments. A retraction in Nature signals that previously publicised certainty was overstated and that uncertainty is larger than first reported. The episode highlights the importance of transparent data, checks for spatial dependence and community scrutiny in high-stakes interdisciplinary research. The authors’ open sharing of corrected data and methods on Zenodo is a positive step for reproducibility, but peer review of the revised analysis remains pending.