2.9C is absolutely an extreme prediction. The figure I linked is from the IPCC SR15 (source was in the comment). Digging through the sixth assessment report, th

2.9C is absolutely an extreme prediction. The figure I linked is from the IPCC SR15 (source was in the comment). Digging through the sixth assessment report, there's this: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/static/4d357606f10734acb37dc3c49dd4a32c/a8441/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FigureSPMBox.png https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/static/4d357606f10734acb3... You can see that 5/8 of the projections fall below 2.5C, and 4/8 fall below 2C. The predictions that rise above 2.5C are the three most extreme categories of the report. There's simply no way to claim that a prediction of 2.9C is not "extreme". SSP2-4.5 is in category C6, which is the top 50% of all predictions. Moreover, from the report describing the "categories": > Around half of all modelled global emission scenarios assume cost-effective approaches that rely on least-cost emission abatement options globally. The other half look at existing policies and regionally and sectorally differentiated actions So you're talking about a distribution of predictions where half assume little/no changes over current circumstances. The problem with all of these scenario "categories" is that they're bucketed by maximum predicted temperature, so it all becomes a game of begging the question: if you choose to emphasize "category C7" from the IPCC report, it means only that you prefer to believe a scenario where warming tops out at 4C (literally the definition of C7). Scenarios that make wildly different assumptions are grouped together, and it's impossible to know which ones are likely, and difficult to know which ones reflect current planned mitigations, etc. But this does show clearly the range of possible predicted outcomes -- if some newspaper comes along and tells you that "experts" are "predicting" a rise of 4C, you can know that they're on the tail of the distribution of reasonable predictions. Edit: found the description of SSP2-4.5 (table SPM.2, here [1]). It assumes that we never hit net zero CO2 production, and that GHG emissions continue on their current path through 2050 with only minimal mitigatons. Is this realistic? Who knows. But it's certainly not the stated plan. [1] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_SPM.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6...