A high-profile climate paper by Kotz et al. claiming climate change would cost 300% more than prior estimates is being retracted after researchers found its results hinged on weird data from Uzbekistan. Independent analysis revealed that removing this single country’s economic records for 1995–1999 caused the extreme projections to collapse. While climate damages remain large, they align with earlier research rather than the headline-grabbing figures.

The authors acknowledged that adjustments for spatial auto-correlation and source transitions widened uncertainty ranges and reduced the probability of severe mid-century divergence. These changes were too substantial for a correction, prompting full retraction. An updated preprint remains publicly available with continued open access to its data and methodology.

Critics note that such sensitivity to one nation should have been flagged initially. Thanks to open science practices, the global community quickly validated concerns, ultimately correcting a widely cited economic projection used by central banks around the world across Europe and beyond.