"Failing to curb future emissions could cause an additional 1.5 - 5 feet (0.5 - 1.5 meters) of rise for a total of 3.5 - 7 feet (1.1 - 2.1 meters) by the end of this century" is also pretty disturbing.
They almost certainly are. Retroactive studies of climate predictions made by the IPCC found that they were consistently much too conservative.
And there have been multiple climate related events in the last few years that were worse than the worst case models. (The heat wave in the US's pascific northwest last summer.) Others that are occurring way ahead of schedule - for instance, models predict the equatorial region having days of deadly heat by 2080, it happened in 2020.
So, any time you see a climate prediction put forth by a major institution, I would assume it's going to be too conservative. That has been our pattern so far.
Yeah, people think these types of things are blown up and manipulated as if the scientists actually make a buck out of it versus their usually very meagre salary and huge workload,
Someone I know who used to work for a non-specific policy related group of scientists investigating something pretty important (pollution, the kind that gives your kids fucked up lungs not something relatively abstract like global warming) and that he was explicitly told (in response to a warning their data looked bad for the government) "That's awful, we must do something about it, in the meantime please lower the figure"
From a different viewpoint, these scientists are just trying to shut down companies and have employees lose their jobs by making things too expensive because the happen to pollute "a little". So intead of polluter pays, consumer pays after the prices get raised to compensate the expense of the polluter fines/taxes, the equipment upgrade to reduce emissions, etc.
If the damn scientists would just shut up already, everything would be fine! /s
If you tax the carbon then the market will adjust by favouring more efficient products. If poor people can't afford them then that's a different societal issue which is not being caused by a relatively small tax.