Table of Contents
Recent commentary says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has indirectly acknowledged that one of its most used high-emissions scenarios, the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5, a worst-case pathway that assumes continued heavy fossil fuel use and rapid emissions growth, is “implausible.”
The RCPs were originally developed to explore a range of possible greenhouse gas futures, from strong mitigation to very high emissions. RCP 8.5 is often used in climate discussions because it represents a “worst-case” future in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise sharply, with heavy fossil fuel use and limited climate action.
But while it has recently been described as “implausible”, it has already been widely used in major climate impact assessments in countries such as the US, UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Japan, and the Netherlands, where it has continued to serve as a reference point for stress-testing climate risks.
“Central banks around the world have restructured their risk frameworks around these findings,” pointed out political scientist Roger Pielke Jr. “This framework has shaped regulations governing appliance standards, pipeline permitting, and vehicle emissions. Financial-disclosure frameworks at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and parallel regimes across the European Union and U.K., treated these damage projections as credible scientific findings deserving regulatory weight.”
Simply put, it is dangerous to treat possible futures as exact predictions of what will happen, especially now that RCP 8.5 is unlikely to happen. This can make risks seem more certain than they really are, which may lead to stronger or more aggressive policies based on assumptions that were only meant to explore possibilities.
(Also read: Cebu on the Brink: Energy Shortages Threaten Its Economic Momentum)
What This Means for the PH
In the Philippines, this discussion intersects directly with an already aggressive push toward renewable energy (RE) expansion, which has been framed as both a climate necessity and a pathway to long-term energy security.
The government has set a target of 35% RE in the power generation mix by 2030 and 50% by 2040. This aligns the country with global decarbonization trends, particularly in advanced economies that are also scaling up renewable capacity.
Investment momentum has been strong. According to BloombergNEF’s Climatescope 2024 report, the Philippines ranked as the second most attractive emerging market for RE investment globally, reflecting improved policy frameworks such as auctions, tax incentives, and liberalized foreign ownership rules. This positions the country as one of the most active RE markets in Southeast Asia.
A key driver of this expansion is the Green Energy Auction (GEA), which allocates large-scale renewable capacity through long-term contracts. Auction rounds have committed thousands of megawatts of solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal capacity to the pipeline.
But this is where concerns arise. Programs such as the Feed-in Tariff Allowance (FIT-All) and the GEA-All are funded through levies passed on to consumers. While FIT-All supports older RE projects by locking in guaranteed rates, GEA-All applies to newer projects awarded through the GEA.
In both systems, RE developers receive fixed or pre-agreed prices that are often higher than prevailing market rates to ensure investment viability. The difference between these guaranteed rates and actual market prices is then passed on to consumers through universal charges embedded in electricity bills.
As of early 2026, combined FIT-All and GEA-All charges stood at ₱0.2382/kWh, which accumulates into billions of pesos annually when applied across millions of households and businesses.
There are also spatial and livelihood considerations. The expansion of large-scale solar farms, wind projects, and transmission infrastructure requires extensive land and coastal areas. In some regions, this has raised concerns about overlapping uses with fishing zones, agricultural land, and environmentally sensitive areas.
At the macro level, the challenge is balancing climate ambition with inclusive growth. The Philippines is pursuing decarbonization at a time when it is still an emerging economy, where electricity affordability is a pressing concern. For many Filipino households, power bills can take up as much as 30 to 40% of a worker’s income, making electricity costs a major factor in both day-to-day survival and long-term financial security.
Additionally, the Philippines accounts for only about 0.5% of global carbon emissions, yet it is often expected to follow the same timelines and policy constraints as industrialized countries whose historical emissions powered long periods of economic growth. Critics argue that this gap between responsibility and expectation is not only inequitable but also economically risky.
With RCP 8.5 considered questionable, there is an argument for the country to reassess the pace and intensity of its energy transition targets, taking into account its broader economic constraints and competing priorities such as poverty reduction and public health.
(Also read: Powerless Progress: How Failing Electric Cooperatives Are Dragging Down the Visayas)
Questioning Climate Investment Assumptions
Pielke also points to another widely cited climate economics study that later faced major scrutiny. The paper, authored by Maximilian Kotz, Anders Levermann, and Leonie Wenz, estimated that unmitigated climate change could reduce global economic output by around $38 trillion per year by mid-century. It became highly influential in public debate, ranking as the second-most mentioned climate research paper in 2024 according to Carbon Brief, and was also cited by central banks and governments in support of more aggressive climate policy.
However, concerns about the robustness of its findings eventually led to its collapse. After more than 18 months of review following the initial concerns, the journal formally retracted the paper.
But such projections of large-scale economic damage have shaped the urgency and scale of climate finance discussions. At COP30 in Brazil, countries agreed to mobilize at least $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 for climate action. Alongside government pledges, the UNEZA Alliance of public utilities is committed to investing $66 billion each year in renewable energy and a further $82 billion annually in grid transmission and storage infrastructure.
In his paper, Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies, political scientist Bjorn Lomborg stated that the costs of implementing climate policies may, in some cases, outweigh the climate benefits they deliver.
“The Paris Agreement, if fully implemented, will cost $819–$1,890 billion per year in 2030, yet will reduce emissions by just 1% of what is needed to limit average global temperature rise to 1.5°C,” he argued.
Lomborg also warned that an excessive focus on climate mitigation could risk diverting resources and policy attention away from broader development priorities, such as reduced poverty, longer lifespans, and broader access to education, healthcare, and energy.
“The evidence also manifestly alerts us to the danger that we end up with too ambitious and overly costly climate policies, and a general outlook that puts the world on a growth path that will deliver dramatically less welfare, especially for the world’s poorest,” he wrote.
This point was echoed in a message from Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates ahead of COP30, where he stated that the central focus should be improving human well-being rather than concentrating narrowly on emissions or temperature targets. While acknowledging that climate change disproportionately affects poorer populations, he emphasized that “the biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been.”
Rebalancing Climate Ambition
The global carbon budget continues to dominate climate discourse, but it often obscures an uncomfortable reality: the richest 1% emit in days what the poorest half of the world takes years to produce. For the Philippines, this translates into a clear carbon deficit relative to its development needs. Critics argue that pushing for net-zero timelines before ensuring universal and reliable energy access risks entrenching inequality and creating immediate economic strain, with limited impact on global temperature outcomes.
In the energy debate, Manila Times columnist Ben Kritz highlighted that as renewable capacity expands, so too does the need for reserve power and ancillary services, which are essential for grid stability. “…the RE targets — 35 percent of the energy mix by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040 — are completely arbitrary, not based at all on what the overall energy system can or can be expected to accommodate, but rather virtue-signaling,” he wrote.
This concern is echoed in broader critiques of how climate science is applied in policy settings. Pielke cautioned against treating scientific outputs as fixed or unquestionable truths, particularly when applied in low-income contexts where trade-offs are more severe.
“None of this means that climate change isn’t real. Human activity warms the planet. The uncertain risks merit serious discussion and responses,” concluded Pielke. “But so-called settled science that is built on flawed data and shielded from correction fails both policymakers and the public. By defending flawed data, scientific institutions erode the public trust they need to solve the world’s most challenging problems.”
Taken together, these perspectives point to a central tension: how to balance climate ambition with development realities, especially in economies where energy access, affordability, and poverty reduction remain urgent priorities.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_Pathway
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/rcp85-is-officially-dead
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/you-cant-trust-climate-economics-86436c3e
https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/11/1166433
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162520304157
https://www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-page-topic/reader/three-tough-truths-about-climate