Trump Administration Plans to Update and Contest Previous National Climate Assessments
The Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, announced on Tuesday night that the Trump administration is revising the National Climate Assessments, which were recently removed from government websites. In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source,” Wright stated, “We are reviewing them, and we will release updated reports and comments on those reports.”
Wright criticized previous assessments for their broad-based evaluations of climate change, stating that they were not fair representations. He explained, “When you scrutinize departments’ content and find objectionable material, it is necessary to rectify it.”
Energy spokesperson Andrea Woods clarified that the National Climate Reports are published by NOAA, not DOE, and Wright was not suggesting he would personally alter past reports.
The interagency process and publication of the National Climate Assessments are overseen by the US Global Change Research Program, a congressionally established entity. These reports are congressionally mandated research documents authored by hundreds of scientists and experts. They aim to inform the public about the latest climate science and the current and future impacts of climate change in the U.S., undergoing multiple rounds of peer review from all 13 federal agencies that conduct climate research, as well as an independent National Academy of Sciences panel’s approval of content.
The Trump administration released the Fourth US National Climate Assessment in 2018 but attempted to downplay its significance by publishing it on Black Friday. The current administration has since removed all previous reports from government websites, dismissed the scientists working on the next iteration of the report, and published a separate report compiled by five researchers that questioned the severity of climate change.
Altering or revising previously published assessments would represent a significant departure in the administration’s efforts to discredit credible climate science. Zeke Hausfather, climate research lead at financial services company Stripe, who helped author the Fifth National Climate Assessment, expressed concern, stating, “That would be an unusual approach, given the extensive process involved in creating these reports.”
Wright played a significant role in commissioning a new federal report that questions the severity of climate change, authored by five researchers known for their skepticism of climate science. This report was issued last week, coinciding with a proposed regulatory repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ‘endangerment finding,’ a 2009 scientific determination that human-caused climate change poses a threat to human health and safety.
Wright personally selected the four researchers and one economist who authored the Trump administration report: John Christy and Roy Spencer, research scientists at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, Steven E. Koonin of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Georgia Tech professor emeritus Judith Curry, and Canadian economist Ross McKitrick. Wright stated, “I made a list of who I believe to be the genuine, honest scientists. I compiled a list of about a dozen of them that I considered very senior and highly respected. I called the top five, and everyone agreed.”
Unlike the National Climate Assessments and international climate science reports that take years to compile and review, the recent DOE report was completed in just two months and is now undergoing a public comment process.