Under the worst-case scenarios laid out in the United Nations' climate change projections, global temperatures would increase more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) by 2100, leading to at least 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) in global sea level rise and an array of disastrous consequences for people and planet. But new research from the University of Colorado Boulder finds that these high-emissions scenarios, used as baseline projections in the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) global assessments, have not accurately reflected the slowing rate of growth in the global economy and we are unlikely to catch up to them anytime soon.