The Trump administration immediately rejected more than 400 scientists and other experts who have begun writing the latest National Climate Assessment Report this week, emailing the report’s scope is being reassessed.
Reports mandated by Congress are prepared every four years under the Act of 1990. It details the latest science on climate change and also reports on progress in global warming efforts.
Scientists said they were afraid that the Trump administration would shut down efforts or write very different reports attempting to seduce other authors to attack climate science.
“Climate change is at risk for all of us and we need this important information to help prepare,” said Katherine Hayho, a climate scientist at Texas Tech, who was the author of four versions of three reports as the lead author. “Without that, the future will be much more dangerous.”
She pointed out that although evaluations are required by law, there are no specific requirements for who should write the report accurately or the form it should take.
“It could be a collection of long-lived myths and disinformation about climate change,” Hayhoe said. “It could ultimately be a non-useful document and does not serve the purpose of informing Americans about the risks of climate change and the best ways to mitigate or adapt those risks.”
Trump administration officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Participants in the latest survey, scheduled for release in late 2027 or early 2028, received an email informing them that it was being rejected Monday.
“At this point, the scope of the (report) is currently being reassessed,” states Heidi Loop, deputy director of services for the US Global Change Research Program. “We are currently releasing all current assessment participants from our roles.”
He thanked him for participating, saying, “As the plan develops for evaluation, there may be future opportunities to contribute or engage.”
This report is written by time-appointing scientists and experts. They have been working on their sixth assessment since the first report was released in 2000.
“National climate assessments are a national treasure,” said Costa Samaras, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, who worked as the lead author of climate change mitigation measures before its announcement on Monday. “Supported by the highest level of scientific integrity, it represents the best science available to the American public about how communities can change and respond to climate change.”
The report update takes place at a critical time as fossil fuel burning and rising greenhouse gases put the Earth in a warmer, volatile climate trajectory than humans experienced. The latest science, released in 2023, detailing the latest science on more extreme heat waves, wildfires and other disasters, saying “severe climate risks to the United States continue to grow” without deeper reductions in emissions and faster adaptation efforts.
Last year, the US experienced 27 weather and climate-related disasters, each measuring losses of at least $1 billion. Over the past five years, there have been 115 independent events that cost the community more than $750 billion.
“National climate assessments help communities understand how communities impact populations, ecosystems and infrastructure, and help them prepare and adapt to these changes,” Samaras said.
He said his team had made good progress in their chapters. This is how well it is, what areas the US is reducing greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming, and there are opportunities for innovation to grow clean energy-generating industries. They already have all authors, including federal employees and academic and nonprofit researchers, and have submitted a preliminary draft review.
“That’s a huge loss,” Samaras said. “It’s a loss to taxpayers, a loss to the community, a loss to the environment. Creating a report basically can’t save us and it costs us all.”
Rud Keith, an associate professor of planning and director of the University of Arizona’s Thermal Resilience Initiative, also received an email. Keith said he and other contributors were carefully selected to bring a wide range of scientific expertise and regions to represent.
“If a report is provided to fulfill Congressional mandate without the expertise of contributors and a rigorous, transparent peer review process, it will further undermine the reliability of this administration’s ability to address the most serious and pressing challenges of our country,” Keith said.
“The hottest decade on record has been the last decade, and the US has experienced an increase in extreme heat, drought, wildfires and flooding,” Keith said. “Losing this important source of information ultimately undermines our country’s ability to deal with the impacts of climate change.”
Trump and his administration repeatedly criticised, undermined and paid back the science of climate change. The Trump administration is seeking production.
Federal scientists were recently at a meeting of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And in early April, the administration with a consulting firm that participated in the US Global Change Research Program coordinated the writing of federal studies and national climate assessments.
Project 2025, a conservative blueprint written by Trump’s allies last year, encouraged the president to review.
“The next president should critically analyze the assessment (US Global Change Research Program) created under the Biden administration and reject it when necessary,” the document states.
National Climate Assessment and other Climate Change Research Programs claim to reduce the president’s decision-making power and the scope of federal agencies. He also states that the process should include a more diverse perspective. Both are themes that have been re-launched over the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, focusing on cutting costs and increasing US energy independence.
“When it comes to climate science, anything we see in the first 100 days is causing alarms,” said Rachel Critos, economist and policy director for the Climate and Energy Program for interested scientists. “The motivation is clearly to privilege the benefits of fossil fuels over the benefits of the public. This report is entirely in the public interest, and they are just trying to fill in the facts.”
Critos was one of the authors of the chapter on how climate change is affecting the US coast.
Edward Kerr, senior scientist and director of the Center for Stockholm Environmental Research in the US, said the cancellation of the report was “a different effort to erase what evidence a serious policy debate can build.”
The Trump administration recently cancelled writing a major science report called The, which began under the Biden administration.
“The pattern I see across the federal government is acting like it’s just that by eliminating all mentions about climate change, it’s certainly not true.”
Field was the author of the Nature Assessment Report before it was shelved on the shelf, and the author of previous versions of the climate assessment.
He said that if the next version of the report is discarded, the country will lose the latest and authoritative information from the federal government. The federal government is widely used to notify local decisions by cities, states, planning agencies, flood management authorities, coastal committees, agricultural agencies, and more.
Without such information, he said the country has not prepared much for the continued and growing impacts of climate change.
“It’s as if half of the windows are blocked or the headlights aren’t working when you’re driving,” Field said. “The ability to make good decisions about the future will rely heavily on the best information available in practice, and reducing access to that information will be more difficult, more challenging, uncertain and expensive.”
