Nearly 400 scientists from across the United States were informed Monday afternoon that their services were no longer required to assist the federal government in writing a major report on climate change.
The National Climate Assessment is a major publication produced every four years that summarizes the effects of climate change in the United States. It is congressionally mandated under the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The sixth edition is set to be published in 2027, and preparations have been underway for months to meet that deadline.
The National Climate Assessment serves as the foundation for federal, state, and local governments, as well as private companies, to prepare for the effects of climate change, understand future climate risk projections, and learn how to adapt and mitigate these challenges.
The deputy director of services of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, a federal office that organizes the report’s publication, sent an email to participants saying, “Thank you for your participation in the 6th National Climate Assessment… we are now releasing all current assessment participants from their roles.”
According to the email, the “scope” of the assessment is being “reevaluated” as the Trump administration works to comply with the law, which the White House has also confirmed to CBS News.
However, many in the scientific community are concerned about how the report will be written without the subject matter expertise of hundreds of scientists and researchers, many of whom were non-federal employees who volunteered to work on the report for the government.
“The Trump administration has dismissed all of the scientists from their work on the nation’s most important climate change report,” Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, stated. “Refusing to study climate change won’t make it go away – or help us deal with stronger storms, droughts, floods, wildfires and hotter temperatures, or help us stop emitting the pollution that is making it worse.”
The move is not surprising given that Project 2025 outlined a plan to reshape both the report and the office that organizes it, the United States Global Change Research Program. In Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s policy roadmap for the next Republican president, authors argued that bureaucratic offices like USGCRP should have less power and reports like NCA should include “diverse viewpoints.”
The groundwork for this was laid a few weeks ago when many federal employees of the USGCRP were fired, according to Politico, and the contract for outside work to publish the NCA was canceled in early April.
When asked how scientists felt about their expertise no longer being required, the majority said they expected the news.
“I feel badly for the federal leaders who have put a lot of time into this, but to some extent, I think the writing was on the wall when they dismissed the support staff a few weeks ago,” said Dr. Robert Kopp, a climate scientist and professor at Rutgers University who was also working on the current assessment. “I think now it’s clear, many of the authors would like to see an up-to-date evidence based report.”
It is unclear how an independent report can be published outside the purview of the federal government. Dr. Kopp believes that independent fundraising will be required to support the report’s publication because organizing the efforts of hundreds of volunteer scientists who write the content takes a significant amount of time, energy, and resources.
Failure to publish a report of record that can withstand a rigorous scientific review of previous national assessments is significant, according to Dr. Mijin Cha, a climate and environmental justice professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz and co-author of this year’s assessment.
“We’re losing our status as the premiere data and research country,” Dr. Cha told reporters.
Many in the scientific community have begun to discuss how to proceed, but fears remain that the Trump administration will release its own report, with authors representing opposing views on climate change.
“I’m worried who will do the NCA moving forward and putting something forward that is false,” according to Dr. Cha.
Because the Global Change Research Act of 1990 requires the NCA to be written, the Trump administration is legally bound to follow the law and has until the end of 2027 to complete the sixth version of the report.