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Free Malaysia Today
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
US climate assessment thrown into doubt as Trump dismisses authors
The decision marked the latest flashpoint in Donald Trump's extensive efforts to reshape the US scientific landscape. (AP pic) WASHINGTON : President Donald Trump's administration on Monday disbanded the authors of the US' premier climate report, a move scientists said threatens to derail a critical assessment mandated by Congress and vital to the nation's preparedness against global warming. In an email sent to contributors of the Sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA6), the administration said the report's 'scope' was being 'reevaluated' and informed participants they were being 'released from their roles,' with no timeline offered for potential reengagement. The decision follows mass firings earlier this month at the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the federal body overseeing the congressionally required report, and marks the latest flashpoint in Trump's sweeping efforts to reshape the federal government, particularly in the realm of science. Rachel Cleetus, a senior policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and a former author on NCA6's chapter on coastal impacts, blasted the move as reckless and politically motivated. 'Today, the Trump administration senselessly took a hatchet to a crucial and comprehensive US climate science report by dismissing its authors without cause or a plan,' Cleetus said in a statement. 'Trying to bury this report won't alter the scientific facts one bit, but without this information, our country risks flying blind into a world made more dangerous by human-caused climate change.' The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Other authors also took to social media to confirm they had received identical notices, expressing frustration and alarm over the unprecedented disruption of the scientific process. Since returning to office, Trump has embarked on an aggressive overhaul of federal institutions, firing thousands of civil servants, including climate scientists and public health experts. It has also steered agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Institutes of Health away from climate and environmental research. The disruption of NCA6 comes at a perilous time: global temperatures have begun to breach 1.5C of warming above preindustrial levels, according to recent international analyses, fuelling worsening wildfires, droughts, floods, and storms across the US. The National Climate Assessment, first published in 2000, is a cornerstone of US government climate understanding, synthesising input from federal agencies and hundreds of external scientists. Previous iterations have warned in stark terms of mounting risks to America's economy, infrastructure, and health if greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed. While not directly prescriptive on policy, the reports have served as critical guideposts for lawmakers, businesses, and local governments planning climate resilience measures. Under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the federal government is legally obligated to deliver the climate assessment to Congress and the president. It remains unclear whether the administration's actions will ultimately delay, compromise, or cancel the report entirely.
New York Times
02-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Two Scientific Groups Say They'll Keep Working on U.S. Climate Assessment
The Trump administration last week dismissed the nearly 400 authors of the nation's flagship climate report, saying in an email that the scope of the report was being reviewed. The move threw the future of the report, known as the National Climate Assessment, into limbo. On Friday, two major U.S. scientific organizations, the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society, announced a plan to publish the authors' work as originally planned. 'It's incumbent on us to ensure our communities, our neighbors, our children are all protected and prepared for the mounting risks of climate change,' Brandon Jones, the president of the union and a program director with the National Science Foundation, said in the statement. 'This collaboration provides a critical pathway for a wide range of researchers to come together and provide the science needed to support the global enterprise pursuing solutions to climate change. ' The National Climate Assessment is a comprehensive review of the latest climate science that gauges how climate change is affecting the country and what can be done to adapt and mitigate its effects. There have been five published since 2000. The sixth edition was scheduled to be published in early 2028. The new effort would not replace the federal report, which is Congressionally mandated, the statement from the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society said. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. When the authors of the National Climate Assessment, known as NCA6, were dismissed, the email they received said that 'the scope of the report is currently being re-evaluated in accordance with the Global Change Research Act of 1990.' That legislation created the U.S. Global Change Research Program, where the administration cut staff and funds in April. It is not clear whether the administration will proceed with the assessment in a revised form, try to circumvent Congress and cancel it entirely, or pursue another path. 'This effort cannot replace NCA6, which undergoes thorough public and governmental review,' said Jason West, an environmental scientist at the University of North Carolina who led the air quality chapter in the previous assessment. 'Nonetheless, it gives author teams that had already begun working an opportunity to complete and publish their work.' Authors on the report had been working for about a year planning their chapters, which covered topics including updating climate models and urban adaptations to heat. Scientists highlighted that the National Climate Assessment is unique in its breadth, depth and rigor, and that the government's role in publication has in the past provided weight and credibility to the report. Having their volunteer roles suddenly and summarily canceled was disheartening, scientists said. For some, the announcement from the scientific societies was a welcome sign that their work could continue, similar to how authors of the inaugural National Nature Assessment pressed on to publish their work. 'The AGU/AMS effort can support momentum on climate science after recent setbacks,' said Costa Samaras, a civil engineer at Carnegie Mellon University who would have led the climate mitigation chapter, in an email. It's 'a reminder that science is unstoppable.'
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'The most patriotic thing': Arizona climate experts reel as Trump pauses volunteer report
Hundreds of American scientists who volunteered their time to help produce the congressionally mandated Sixth National Climate Assessment, due out in early 2028, received an email April 28 from the Trump administration. "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." Coverage of the fifth climate report: 'We can't be complacent:' Climate report offers mix of familiar warnings, new solutions 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." New wildfire series: Are Arizona cities prepared to evade urban wildfires? If not, will they build back better? 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 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 @ or email her at Sign up for AZ Climate, The Republic's weekly climate and environment newsletter. Read more of the team's coverage at by subscribing to This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump pauses mandated climate report, 'dismisses' Arizona experts
29-04-2025
- Politics
These are the biggest 'anti-environment' policies enacted in Trump's 1st 100 days, according to experts
President Donald Trump has enacted a sweeping number of policies that could harm the environment and hamper goals for greenhouse gas reductions during his first 100 days in office, according to environmental policy experts. When Trump was inaugurated for his second term on Jan. 20, his administration came prepared -- shattering the record for the most executive orders signed on the first day in office. Several of the 54 executive orders signed on Inauguration Day impacted the environment, including a declaration of a national energy emergency, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement for the second time and rolling back drilling restrictions on federal lands and waters. The policies are largely shrouded in the idea of U.S. independence or " putting America first," the orders state. The Trump administration has engaged in a "flood the zone" strategy to overwhelm the environmental community and make it nearly impossible for them to respond to every single executive order, Dan Esty, a professor of environmental law and policy at Yale University and former commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, told ABC News. While some of the Trump administration's "anti-environment" policies, as Esty called them, are garnering more attention than others, he added the public shouldn't ignore the seemingly minor rollbacks or actions. "There are a number of more subtle actions that the Trump administration has taken that also have considerable corrosive effect on our efforts to promote action on climate change and a sustainable future more broadly," he said. One example experts cited is the rollback of the social cost of carbon regulation, a policy implemented during the Obama administration, Esty said. This decision could upend energy and environmental regulations designed to address the greenhouse gas emissions that heavily contribute to climate change, he explained. "The takedown of the social cost of carbon has subtle but pervasive effects that will really damage environmental protection," Esty said. Another example is Trump's executive order to protect "American energy from state overreach," which contains language that could block enforcement of state and local laws that intervene in the production or use of coal, oil, natural gas, hydropower, geothermal, biofuel and nuclear energy. The order centralizes energy regulation at the federal level and targets policies that restrict carbon emissions, which could further derail decarbonization efforts and roll back clean air and water protections, experts say. On Monday, the Trump administration dismissed the authors of the Sixth National Climate Assessment report -- the U.S. government's preeminent report on the risks, impacts and responses to climate change mandated by Congress and produced every four years. In an email to the authors, the administration wrote that "the scope of the NCA6 is currently being reevaluated" and officials are "releasing all current assessment participants from their roles." The " Climate Backtracker," a database started by Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change that tracks steps taken by the Trump administration to scale back or eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures, lists more than 100 actions taken since Jan. 20. It will be difficult to reverse the damage done by many of these policies, John Holdren, a professor of environmental science and policy and former science adviser to President Barack Obama, told ABC News. "You cannot reassemble broken programs very quickly," he said. These are some of Trump's policies that some experts say could cause the most environmental harm. Attempt to boost fossil fuel production Trump's declaration of a national energy emergency lays the framework for enacting policies that increase domestic production of fossil fuels, experts said. "We need a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy to drive our Nation's manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and defense industries, and to sustain the basics of modern life and military preparedness," according to an executive order he signed. Apart from rolling back restrictions on drilling, Trump also signed an executive order to expand mining and the use of coal in the U.S. On April 18, the Department of the Interior announced a new offshore leasing plan on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. Sam Sankar, senior vice president at Earthjustice, the nation's largest public interest environmental law firm, told ABC News that U.S. fossil fuel production is at an all-time high, despite Trump's claims of an energy crisis. In 2024, the country produced 13.2 million barrels of oil per day, breaking the record set in 2019 at 12.3 million barrels, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. For the last several years, the U.S. has been the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world. EPA deregulation Several of the environmental freedoms Americans experience today – clean air, clean water and clean rain among them – could soon be in jeopardy from the Environmental Protection Agency's deregulation plans, according to experts. On March 12, the EPA announced it was taking part in the "biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history." The move includes rolling back emission regulations on coal, oil and gas production and reevaluating government findings that determined that greenhouse gas emissions heat the planet and are a threat to public health, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said. "Alongside President Trump, we are living up to our promises to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, and work hand-in-hand with our state partners to advance our shared mission," Zeldin said in March. In November, when Trump announced his intention to nominate Zeldin, he said the new EPA administrator would "ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses" in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. Revoking these regulations would hamper the EPA's ability to keep Americans from getting sick from the exposure to environmental pollutants, experts said. "Any policy changes that may occur under this administration will continue to protect human health and the environment," an EPA spokesperson said in response to an ABC News request for comment. "They will be guided by science and the law, as well as input from the public. They will also be guided by many of the executive orders issued by the President and EPA Administrator Zeldin's Powering the Great American Comeback Initiative.' The health of Americans, however, could suffer as a result of sweeping regulation at the EPA, Sankar said. "All of the regulations [Trump] is rolling back are aimed at making it easier for the fossil fuel manufacturers to generate petrochemicals and and fuel supplies," he said. "All of that stuff has tremendous health consequences." Federal firings and slashing of budgets, programs After taking office, Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), overseen by billionaire Elon Musk and intended to incorporate cost-cutting within the federal government. Since then, DOGE has eliminated thousands of federal employees at key scientific institutions, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. The White House says Trump created DOGE"to bring accountability and transparency to federal spending, ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and effectively." The NWS has cancelled certain weather balloon launches and is dealing with staffing issues at many of its local offices as a result of the cuts, the agency announced in March. The administration has been "slashing staff, slashing budgets, slashing programs across the range of federal departments and agencies with responsibilities for supporting this enormous science and technology enterprise," Holdren said. While the "assault" on environmental policy, as Esty termed it, was anticipated going into Trump's second term, the sweeping personnel cuts were not. "When people of expertise and competence leave the government, you cannot find them and rehire them and reassemble them into teams very quickly," Holdren said. Esty added, "It has long been understood that good policy depends on careful analysis and good science, and we're seeing the capacity to deliver that foundation systematically undermined." "This can hardly be seen as anything short of a wholesale attack on the sources of scientific and technological innovation in this country," Holdren said.
The Guardian
29-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump dismisses contributors to key US report on climate crisis preparedness
Donald Trump's administration has dismissed all contributors to the US government's flagship study on how to prepare for climate change impacts, prompting strong criticism from experts over a 'senseless' move. The climate assessment is used by federal and local governments to understand how to prepare for climate crisis impacts including from extreme heat, hurricanes, flooding and drought. The dismissal of nearly 400 contributors, who are scientists and other experts, to the sixth National Climate Assessment (NAC), which is mandated by Congress, leaves the future of the report in doubt since the multi-year, peer-reviewed analysis is due for publication in 2028. The experts were notified on Monday by email. 'At this time, the scope of the NCA6 is being evaluated in accordance with the Global Change Research Act of 1990,' the email, seen by Reuters, said, referring to the legislation that kickstarted the assessments that was signed by George HW Bush, a Republican president. The NAC has been overseen by the Nasa-supported Global Change Research Program, which the Trump administration dismissed earlier this month, and had coordinated input from 14 federal agencies and hundreds of external scientists. The NAC reports have been published since 2000. Dr Rachel Cleetus, a senior policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and an NCA6 report author on the coasts chapter, said in a statement: 'Today, the Trump administration senselessly took a hatchet to a crucial and comprehensive US climate science report by dismissing its authors without cause or a plan. 'People around the nation rely on the NCA to understand how climate change is impacting their daily lives already and what to expect in the future. 'Trying to bury this report won't alter the scientific facts one bit but without this information our country risks flying blind into a world made more dangerous by human-caused climate change. The only beneficiaries of disrupting or killing this report are the fossil fuel industry … Congress must step up to ensure the report it requires by law is conducted with scientific integrity and delivered in a timely way.' Erin Sikorsky, the director of the Center for Climate and Security in the US, a thinktank, said in a social media post : 'Pretending climate risks don't exist doesn't make them go away, unfortunately. This move puts Americans, our communities, and our security at risk.' Dismissing the experts working on the assessment is the latest in a barrage of moves by the Trump administration to end or reduce research into climate as it pursues a 'drill, baby, drill' agenda to prioritize the fossil fuel industry. Federal websites have been purged of information related to the climate and extreme weather and agencies reduced in size, prompting warnings Americans' are being made less safe amid the reality of the climate crisis. In February, Trump officials also denied US scientists permission to attend a meeting of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading climate science entity. The federal government also cancelled its contract with ICF International to maintain US support for and involvement in the body. Reuters contributed to this report
