The Trump administration has rejected hundreds of scientists and experts who were compiling the federal government's flagship report on how global warming is affecting the country.
The move, which is mandatory in Congress and places serious risks on the future of a report known as the National Climate Assessment, experts said.
Since 2000, the federal government has been publishing a comprehensive look every few years about how rising temperatures affect human health, agriculture, fisheries, water supply, transportation, energy production, and other aspects of the US economy. The final climate assessment was published in 2023 and used by state and local governments and private companies to help prepare for the impacts of heat waves, floods, droughts and other climate-related disasters.
On Monday, researchers across the country began working on the sixth National Climate Assessment, planned in early 2028, received an email informing them that the scope of the report is “currently being reassessed” and that all contributors have been rejected.
“We are currently releasing all current assessment participants from our roles,” the email said. “As the evaluation plan unfolds, there may be future opportunities to contribute or engage. Thank you for your service.”
For some of the authors, it seemed to be a fatal blow to the next report.
“This is as close as it could to the end of the assessment,” said Jesse Keenan, a professor at Tulane University who specializes in climate adaptation and co-authored the last climate assessment. “If we remove all involved, nothing has progressed.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Climate assessments are typically compiled by scientists and expert contributors from around the country who are volunteering to write reports. It has since gone through several reviews and public comment periods by 14 federal agencies. The entire process is overseen by the Global Change Research Program, a federal group founded by Congress in 1990, which is supported by NASA.
Under the Trump administration, the process was already facing serious confusion. This month, NASA cancelled its major contract with ICF International, a consulting firm that provided most of the technical support and staffing for the Global Change Research Program, which coordinates work among hundreds of contributors.
President Trump frequently dismissed the risks of global warming. And Russell Vert, the current director of the Office of Business and Budget, wrote before the election that the next president should “restructure” the global change research program.
Vought called for the split of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the source of the government's largest climate research unit, the “climate warning.”
During Trump's first term, his administration failed to attempt to derail the nation's climate assessment. When the 2018 report was released and concluded that global warming had posed an imminent and disastrous threat, the administration released it the day after Thanksgiving to minimize gratitude.
In February, scientists submitted a detailed summary of the following assessment to the White House for initial review: However, that review has been put on hold and the agency's comment period has been postponed.
It is still unclear what will happen next with the assessment still mandated by the Congress. Some scientists feared that the administration might try to write an entirely new report from scratch that underestimated the risks of rising temperatures and conflicting with established climate science.
“These are the best ways to help you,” said Mead Crosby, a senior scientist in the Climate Impact Group at the University of Washington, and contributed to the assessment. “The question is whether it reflects reliable science and plays a real role in our community in preparing for climate change.”
Scientists involved in previous climate assessments say the report is invaluable to understand how climate change affects everyday life in the United States.
Catherine Hayho, a climate scientist at Texas Tech, said this month “we're taking that global issue into consideration and bringing it closer to us.” “If you care about food, water, transportation, insurance or my health, this is what climate change means if I live in the southwest or the Great Plains. That's the value.”
Many state and local policymakers, like private companies, rely on assessments to understand how climate change affects and how it seeks to adapt to different parts of the United States.
And while scientific understanding of climate change and its effects has not changed dramatically since its last assessment in 2023, Dr. Keenan of Tulane said research is steadily progressing on what communities can do to exacerbate ocean levels, higher sea levels and other issues that are exacerbated by rising temperatures.
Scientists said decision makers who were forced to make the final assessment would rely on outdated information about what adaptations and mitigation measures actually work.
“We will lose our cornerstone report, which is supposed to convey the risks of climate change and how to advance,” says Dustin Mulbany, professor of environmental studies and author of San Jose State University. “That's pretty devastating.”
