Trump rejects scientists writing major climate reports
President Trump has rejected hundreds of scientists working on a national climate assessment mandated by Congress, raising concerns about whether niches will be filled with false science
Firefighters are monitoring the movement of flames and smoke through the valleys of the Butte County Forest Ranch area as a park fire continues to burn near Chico, California on July 26, 2024.
Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
ClimateWire | The Trump administration on Monday rejected all scientists working on the latest version of the national climate assessment. This is a drastic report outlining the risks of rising temperatures for lawmakers, policy experts and the public.
The sixth session of the Parliamentary Mandatory Report, scheduled to be published by 2028, is usually compiled by around 400 researchers, many of whom are top scientists at universities who apply to the era. This assessment is used to develop plans for environmental rules, laws and infrastructure projects. Experts are considered the definitive research institute of how global warming is changing countries.
Work had already begun on the sixth version. The Trump administration ended it with a memo sent to researchers on Monday.
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“At this point, the NCA6 range is currently being reassessed in accordance with the Global Change Research Act of 1990,” the contributor reported in an email obtained by Politico’s E&E News.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move was thoroughly criticized by climate scientists late Monday as news spread. The assessment will help Americans “understand how climate change already affects everyday life and what to expect in the future,” said Rachel Critos, one of the fired researchers.
“Trying to fill this report won’t change the scientific facts a bit, but without this information, our country risks blindly jumping in by the human-labelled climate change.” “The only beneficiary to disrupt or kill this report is the fossil fuel industry, which aims to boost the benefits of oil and gas at the expense of people’s health and the economic well-being of the country.”
The plan is closely related I’ll track it with suggestions The White House Budget Director, Las Vote, has urged the Trump administration to throw away all the work on the assessment that began under former President Joe Biden. Vought wants to help select a new group of researchers to publish a report that reflects the administration’s claim that climate change is not a serious threat. That report may focus on how Climate change “benefits” The United States is a conservative policy proposal created by the Heritage Foundation, according to the plans he outlined in Project 2025.
Earlier this month, the administration repaid the US Global Change Research Program, which supports assessments. The program, which coordinated the work of 13 federal agencies, has existed for 35 years through Republican and Democrat presidents, including Trump’s first term.
Trump officials were surprised at the timing of the fourth National Climate Assessment as they are ready for release in 2018. Some people withheld the report and wanted to fire the scientists who worked on it, but the plan was turned down. Instead, the White House tried to downplay the report by releasing it the day after Thanksgiving, but that raised the attention it received.
It is unclear who vaught will attempt to hire for the next assessment.
There is a relatively small pool of qualified researchers who downplay the scientific consensus that climate change could push planets past a series of dangerous turning points. I already have some He told E&E News I am glad that they are willing to be involved in new efforts.
On Monday, some of the fired researchers pledged to continue their work in one way or another. These include Bob Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University, and Bob Kopp, author of the Ocean Coast chapter, which was prepared for the Sixth Report.
“Many of the authors know that Americans still want to find ways to ensure that Americans can still get a current evidence-based assessment of our country’s climate,” he writes of Bluesky.
Reprinted from E&E News With permission from Politico, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news to energy and environmental experts.
