Former Obama science adviser

Steven Koonin is a theoretical physicist who has held several prominent positions throughout his career. He served as a professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Chief Scientist at BP, and Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy under President Barack Obama. He is currently a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the author of the widely discussed book Unsettled.

Koonin is no stranger to Clintel. In 2023, Clintel published the Dutch translation of Unsettled under the title Onbeslist. To mark its release, he gave a lecture for Clintel in Driebergen, the Netherlands, on September 27, 2023. He is also one of the featured scientists in the documentary Climate: The Movie, available on Clintel’s YouTube channel.

At the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) Conference 2026, Koonin expands on the themes explored in Unsettled. The central message of his lecture is that there is a significant gap between what climate science actually concludes and how those scientific findings are subsequently translated into politics, media coverage, and the public debate.

You can watch the full lecture below:

According to Koonin, there is a gap between science and the public narrative

“There is a very significant gap between what climate science actually says and what you’ve been told it says.” With that statement, Steven Koonin captures the central message of his lecture. The former science adviser to President Barack Obama stresses that he is not denying climate change. The Earth is warming, human activities contribute to that warming, and the issue deserves serious attention. His criticism is directed at the way scientific findings are translated into politics, media coverage, and the public debate. According to Koonin, the scientific literature presents a far more nuanced picture than the one that ultimately reaches the public.

The data Koonin believes deserve more attention

To illustrate his point, Koonin begins with a number of striking statistics. Since 1900, the global average temperature has increased by about 1.3°C. Over the same period, the world’s population has grown fivefold, the global economy has expanded roughly twenty-fivefold, and life expectancy has increased by about fifty years worldwide.

Even more striking, he argues, is that deaths from extreme weather have declined by about 95 percent over the same period. According to Koonin, these figures illustrate how economic development, technological progress, and access to reliable energy have made societies far more resilient to the impacts of weather and climate.

He also notes that the IPCC itself does not report clear global trends in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, while drought trends differ markedly by region. “The headlines and the science are simply not the same,” he concludes.

According to Koonin, some climate models “run too hot”

Koonin then turns to the climate models that underpin many policy decisions. According to him, several of the models “run too hot,” producing more warming than has actually been observed. He argues that the models that best match the observational record project less future warming than those that have long dominated climate assessments.

Koonin also criticizes the well-known RCP8.5 emissions scenario. According to him, the scenario was based on an unrealistic projection of global coal consumption, yet for many years it was presented as the most likely future pathway. Notably, the IPCC has since retired RCP8.5 as one of its central reference scenarios, acknowledging that it no longer represents a plausible baseline for future emissions. According to Koonin, when only realistic emissions scenarios and better-performing models are considered, the expected warming by 2100 is around 2.2°C. In his view, this calls for sensible policy—not doomsday scenarios.

How nuance is lost on the journey from science to the public

One of the most striking parts of the lecture is Koonin’s explanation of how climate science is transformed before it reaches the public. It begins with a comprehensive IPCC report, full of scientific detail, uncertainty, and nuance. This is followed by the Summary for Policymakers, where, according to Koonin, the message is already more condensed and more definitive. Politicians and the media then rely primarily on that summary, causing much of the remaining nuance to disappear.

According to Koonin, the result is an ever-widening gap between what climate science actually says and what the public is ultimately told. “At each step, the findings that would temper the alarm are the ones that disappear,” he says.

What is the cost of that gap?

According to Koonin, one crucial question is too often overlooked: do the benefits of current climate policies justify their costs? He points to rising energy prices, a declining competitive position for industry, and the enormous investments required for the energy transition. In his view, policymakers should place much greater emphasis on the effectiveness of individual measures, while giving more attention to reliable energy supplies and adaptation to climate change.

Koonin illustrates this with the example of the United Kingdom, where, in his view, energy policy has for years been driven by an exaggerated sense of urgency. He argues that this has left Britain with the highest electricity prices in the developed world, with major consequences for both households and the competitiveness of its industries. In blunt terms, he describes the current approach as “a self-imposed handicap.” If he were sitting across the table from a member of the British government, he says his first question would be: “What do you think you’re doing?” According to Koonin, Britain’s soaring energy costs illustrate what can happen when political decisions are driven less by a sober assessment of costs and benefits than by fear of worst-case climate scenarios.

The Consequences for the Next Generation

Toward the end of his lecture, Koonin expresses concern about the way climate change is presented to young people. According to him, an entire generation has grown up being told that the planet may become uninhabitable within their lifetime, while the scientific literature paints a far more nuanced picture. In his words, we have given an entire generation “anxiety instead of agency, fear instead of facts.”

Koonin summarizes the central message of his lecture as follows:

“Science requires doubt. Policy requires honest trade-offs. And democracy requires accurate information.”