Kudlow pushes back on UN warning: Climate change modeling has not been successful

Top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday that he is skeptical of a United Nations climate change report that predicted catastrophic consequences if current trends are not reversed, citing past errors in U.N. modeling.

“The issue here … is magnitudes and timing,” Kudlow told ABC’s “This Week” when asked about the study, which was released last Sunday. “Personally, I think the U.N. study…is…way, way too difficult. I won’t say it’s a scare tactic, but I think they overestimate.”

Kudlow pointed to past U.N. modeling, saying the models “have not been very successful in the last 20 years.”

Kudlow also mentioned the work of economist Bill Nordhaus, who has argued that holding temperatures below 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit over preindustrial levels, as the U.N. study recommends, is impossible.

“Bill Nordhaus from Yale got a Nobel Prize on his own economic work with respect to climate change,” he said. “I respect that he’s a really brilliant guy.”

Kudlow added, however, that officials need to be “cognizant of the work that needs to be done.”

“I’m not denying any climate change issues George, I’m just saying do we know precisely, and I mean worth modeling, how much of it is man-made, how much of it is solar, how much of it is oceanic, how much of it is rainforest and other issues. I think we’re still exploring all of that.”

“I don’t think we should panic,” Kudlow said. “I don’t think there’s an imminent disaster coming, but I think we should look at this in a level headed and analytic way.”

The U.N. report warned that the world might be on a path toward catastrophic climate change if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t cut dramatically by 2030.

The report said the world needs to decrease emissions by 45 percent by 2030, or the atmosphere could hit 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming by then.