Two US scientific associations put out a call on Friday for submissions for research that would have been used in the National Climate Assessment (NCA) report after President effectively canceled it.
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) said the would be to “sustain the momentum” of the next report.
“We are filling in a gap in the scientific process,” AGU President Brandon Jones said. “It’s more about ensuring that science continues.”
The NCA is a comprehensive report on the impacts of in the . The last report came out in 2023 when the effects of extreme weather incurred record costs of over $1 billion (€900 million).
The next report is due to come out in 2027.
Why is the NCA report important?
AMS former president Anjuli Bamzi stressed the importance of the report’s future projections, saying its models are used to estimate the impacts 25 to 100 years into the future.
With the assessment “we’re better equipped to deal with the future,” Bamzi said. “We can’t be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and let it go.”
Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who was also lead author on the last three reports, said the NCA is necessary for decision-making.
“People are not aware of how climate change is impacting the decisions that they are making today, whether it’s the size of the storm sewer pipes they’re installing, whether it is the expansion of the flood zone where people are building, whether it is the increases in extreme heat,” she told the Associated Press.
Why did Trump cancel the climate change impact report?
Last week, the Trump administration dismissed the 400 scientists who had been working on the report and said that the NCA was being reevaluated.
Although the report is obligatory according to a 1990 federal law, those involved say that a preliminary budget and eliminate offices that were responsible for the report.
Trump has publicly denied the science of climate change and also dismissed the NCA report in 2018 during his first term.
The last NCA report in 2023 concluded that climate change is “harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security.”
Trump has also withdrawn the United States from joining the latest meetings of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which is currently working on a report on the .
Edited by: Zac Crellin
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