The claim the notice closes
The PLOS One notice dated 23 September retracts a 2023 article on carbon emissions, energy consumption and economic growth. The editors count it as one of a series of submissions carrying concerns about potential manipulation of the publication process, peer review integrity and authorship. Those concerns call into question the validity and provenance of the reported results.[1]
RJ and SY did not agree with the retraction. HD, NP, SA, DS and MJ either did not respond directly or could not be reached. The notice also regrets that the issues were not identified before publication.[1]
The step left out
The notice names a process concern and leaves the specific manipulation unpublished. A reader cannot separate a reviewer ring, an authorship shift and an estimate that falls apart on recomputation. The thing withdrawn is precisely the 2023 link people can keep quoting.[1]
The journal does not stand behind these 2023 estimates. A counter-possibility sits inside the notice too: RJ and SY could be right, the estimates could still hold, and the series concern could belong to another submission. The editors attach the concern to this article's results.[1]
The limit on a quotation
Quoting the 2023 carbon-energy-growth link as a measured result puts back into circulation a figure whose validity the editors have questioned. The document that would change the verdict is a later notice naming the manipulation, or a recomputation on a public dataset. Absent that document, what remains is an estimate nobody at the journal owns.[1]