The Perverse Incentives of Climate Integration: Why Researchers Can't Deliver What Funding Institutions Demand

ABSTRACT Research funders increasingly require integration of future climate projections across health, agriculture, fisheries, and development economics, creating perverse incentives: institutions demand what current climate science cannot reliably deliver. I use “perverse incentive” here in its standard economic sense: an incentive that unintentionally produces counterproductive behavior, rather than implying ill will on the part of funders. Climate models designed for global, long‐term analysis are being misapplied for short‐term, regional uses beyond their validated scope. This paper identifies three problems arising from this mismatch: maladaptation in scientific labor allocation, erosion of trustworthiness through representational overextension, and representational risk from harmful signaling and normalization of inappropriate methodological norms. Researchers include climate projections not because they are justified, but because they are required, transforming models from tools of inquiry into performances of compliance. This threatens both scientific integrity and the legitimacy of science underwritten by democratic norms. Three institutional reforms are proposed to realign incentives with epistemic responsibility and ensure climate science serves as a reliable policy foundation rather than mere signaling.