'The most patriotic thing': Arizona climate experts reel as Trump pauses volunteer report
"At this time, the scope of the NCA6 is currently being reevaluated in accordance with the Global Change Research Act of 1990," it read. "We are now releasing all current assessment participants from their roles."
The series of reports is the result of an act passed by Congress during the George H. W. Bush administration, in response to testimony in 1988 by climate scientist James Hansen that global warming was already worsening droughts and heat waves. Hansen told lawmakers to 'stop waffling' and deal with the problem. So they voted to mandate that a national climate assessment be produced approximately every four years.
Past National Climate Assessments have synthesized the best available scientific understanding of how storms are intensifying, heat waves are becoming more extreme, crops are increasingly failing under the strain of drought and pests that shift into new regions in response to rising temperatures, and much more.
The information is then translated into layperson summaries, maps and graphs and distributed to stakeholders and communities, where it can be used to inform policy and preventative measures designed to protect American lives, homes, businesses and wallets from the supercharged forces of a warmed atmosphere.
Now, the second Trump administration, near the end of the first 100 days, which environmentalists say will devastate public lands, wildlife and climate progress for generations, has halted this volunteer effort signed into law by a Republican administration 35 years ago.
The move is another example of President Donald Trump seeming to follow guidelines set out in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 blueprint for his second term, which he distanced himself from during his campaign. The document highlighted the report as "climate alarmism" and an obstacle to the president's scope of decision-making related to projects or initiatives that could pose additional climate risks identified by the scientist authors.
It is yet unclear what legal challenges may follow. Multiple Arizona State University law professors did not answer The Arizona Republic's inquiries about what it means that this dismissal violates a congressional mandate.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes' office also declined to comment, but shared through spokesperson Richie Taylor that "Mayes is deeply concerned by the Trump Administration's ongoing efforts to undermine our ability to confront climate change ... and will continue to fight back against illegal actions taken by the President that threaten Arizona's communities."
What is clear is that patriotic American climate scientists are dismayed.
The announcement Monday dismissed the scientist authors of the Sixth National Climate Assessment from their roles on the report, not their jobs, as other outlets indicated. But the Trump administration had previously fired staff involved in coordinating the effort through the U.S. Global Change Research Program. This makes it difficult for "plans to develop for the assessment" or for near-term "future opportunities to contribute or engage," as the April 28 email suggests, might be the next step.
"It's incumbent upon us to call out the reality behind the rhetoric here," Dave White, a professor at Arizona State University and director of its Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, told The Republic. "The Climate Assessment has, for all intents and purposes, been canceled."
White was the lead author on the Southwest Chapter of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, which was published in late 2023 and celebrated by President Joe Biden. He traveled to the White House for its release that November and said being appointed to the role and in attendance at its release were some of the greatest honors of his life.
"It is a patriotic duty and a patriotic responsibility," he said. "Many of us, including myself, are incredibly proud of that. These folks are doing this out of service to their country."
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That sense of American service stands in sharp contrast to Trump's treatment of the report as a political attack. White said the scientists involved actually take great care to make sure the process and findings are conservative, not alarmist, and based on robust scientific evidence.
'Contrary to the way it is being framed by this administration, this is a policy-neutral, nonpartisan effort," he said. "The goal with this report is to help every sector of society, all Americans: red states, blue states, manufacturing, agriculture, farming, ranching, as well as environment and health."
"It really is one of the most patriotic things I could imagine," he continued, after a pause to reflect. "Like the Manhattan Project that brought together the greatest minds of a generation to unlock the power of the atom to help try to win the second world war, this is bringing the best minds and talent of universities and nonprofits and government partners together to come up with the best knowledge we have about responding to this incredible challenge that we face.'
Unlike the secretive Manhattan Project, however, the Fifth Climate Assessment, which White noted was still available online at the time of the interview, offers a level of transparency not seen in most other government reports. He described it as a "very dynamic" set of chapters, all hyperlinked to each other so that any interested individual can follow the logical thread. The 2023 version includes an online interactive atlas that allows people to look at specific projections for a particular geography, like their own county.
"It's easy, probably, for people to think of it as just another report that the government produces," White said. "But it's really designed to be something that empowers people, communities, businesses, farmers, ranchers to be able to understand and anticipate impacts."
It also, importantly, does not recommend specific policy actions.
"So the idea that it might have some embedded bias or climate alarmism is really, I think, just rhetoric from the administration to undermine the credibility of what is a really authoritative scientific consensus," he said.
White was not involved in the preparation of the current sixth assessment. He said it's normal for scientists to step back for a cycle since the report can require 10 to 20 hours per week for several years on top of their regular jobs.
Instead, Elizabeth Koebele, who grew up in Mesa and is now an expert on Colorado River policy and a faculty member at the University of Nevada, Reno, was set to lead the next Southwest chapter. She told The Republic she was heartbroken to receive news this week that all authors had been released from their roles on the sixth assessment.
"The Southwest chapter authors, which I led the selection of, are true experts in their fields," Koebele said. "They had already put so much work into exploring the scientific advances that have been made since NCA5. I'm devastated to lose the opportunity to work with this amazing team and to engage with communities across the Southwest to support climate resilience."
Coverage from USA TODAY: Trump cuts reach climate scientists who labored for free
Americans, and in particular Arizonans, may feel the lack of a sixth update to the National Climate Assessment.
Koebele noted that the Southwest is "ground zero" for many impacts of climate change, particularly threats to water security related to aridification, a term for the shift from temporary droughts to more permanent low rainfall conditions. She also pointed out the Southwest has been a "key testbed for innovative climate mitigation and adaptation actions," progress that may be stalled without continued work on the report.
"The absence of a National Climate Assessment that meets the report's historical standards of broad input, rigorous peer review and transparency has serious implications for the nation and especially for the Southwest region," Koebele told The Republic. "If decision makers and stakeholders do not have reliable, up-to-date information on how climate change may impact things the region values, their ability to respond suffers and, in turn, negatively affects all residents."
Leading the way on heat: Sensing heat: How scientists in Phoenix study summer's deadliest invisible threat
White identified three specific examples of how the fifth assessment, released in 2023, has already informed local strategies regarding Arizona's water resources and extreme heat impacts.
He said he has received requests to present the report's findings and how to access its data from entities managing the state's water supplies, including the Phoenix Water Services Department and Salt River Project, one of central Arizona's major utilities. The city used his input to inform their decision-making about smart investments in water infrastructure, and SRP factored his knowledge into its plans to manage Arizona forests in sensitive watersheds. He did this work for Phoenix area officials as a volunteer.
White also said he thinks ASU professor and sustainability researcher Jennifer Vanos' contributions to the fifth assessment's review of the toll extreme heat takes on outdoor worker productivity, and therefore Arizona's economy, have already informed local efforts to address this hazard.
"In her innovative new section of the report, (Vanos) illustrated how the increases in both average and extreme temperatures that are projected based on our very complete and solid understanding of how climate change is impacting heat in our region, anticipate significant reductions in the ability of farm workers, utility workers, those in construction trades and more to cope with extreme increased temperatures," White said. "We anticipate that will be reduced by up to 20 or 25%, and so this information is incredibly vital for not only those frontline community members, but their managers who need to understand how they can reduce risks to their workers."
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Last April, the Phoenix City Council passed an ordinance requiring employers who work with the city to draft a heat safety plan that ensures access for their outdoor workers to free and cool water, breaks as needed, access to shade or air conditioning and that helps employees adapt to the heat. That rule just went into effect May 1.
A city spokesperson said they were not aware of any direct connection between the Fifth Climate Assessment and this new ordinance. But the advances in understanding of heat made by ASU climate scientists have been integrated in many official and unofficial ways with the evolving operations of Phoenix's Office of Heat Response and Mitigation.
Vanos, for her part, is not convinced that all hope is lost for a future Sixth National Climate Assessment. She thinks there may still be some fulfillment of the congressional mandate, just different from what had originally been lined up. She uses the latest report in her class at ASU on "Climate and Health" and would miss having access to more recent data and insights to share with her students.
But she remains confident in the lasting value of the 2023 assessment to which she contributed. She said she continues to learn from it and the report is making a big difference in the scientific world and beyond, where its complexity, derived from reliable data, critical thinking and traceable connections to climate change, can still support decisions about infrastructure needs and coping resources for exposed communities in forward-thinking ways.
"I feel for the government staffers for who this was not a volunteer task," Vanos said. "But I am reminding myself that the NCA5 report as a whole, as well as the specific sections by location and sector, including the data, maps, and graphics, are still valuable to many people, communities, cities, farmers, and beyond, because they are."
Read our climate series: The latest from Joan Meiners at azcentral: climate coverage from Arizona and the Southwest
Joan Meiners is the climate news and storytelling reporter at The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Her award-winning work has also appeared in Discover Magazine, National Geographic, ProPublica and the Washington Post Magazine. Before becoming a journalist, she completed a doctorate in ecology. Follow Joan on Twitter at @beecycles, on BlueSky at @joan.meiners.bksy.social or email her at joan.meiners@arizonarepublic.com.
Sign up for AZ Climate, The Republic's weekly climate and environment newsletter. Read more of the team's coverage at environment.azcentral.com. by subscribing to azcentral.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump pauses mandated climate report, 'dismisses' Arizona experts
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