This week, scientists threw serious firepower into the public debate over climate change. They blasted U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s claims that the National Climate Assessment (NCA) reports are a “wish list.” In the 2000, 2007, 2014, and 2022 NCA reports, global heating’s impacts were laid bare. They provide key information on how it is affecting human health, agriculture, water supplies, and air pollution. These reports, crafted by the world’s top climate scientists and intensely peer-reviewed, are considered the gold standard of climate science.
Wright has been a leading proponent of the administration’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda—the administration’s push to expand fossil fuel production and use in all aspects. Just last month, he downplayed all the reasons people are worried about the climate crisis. He pointed to a Department of Energy report that said fears about climate change were overblown. The scientific community’s condemnation of this position has been fierce. They make the case that in fact, fossil fuels are a culprit of our climate crisis that we’re currently experiencing.
Wright recently told CNN that they are in the middle of re-evaluating those reports. He pledged to release those as updated reports with comments on them in the near future. He added that when examining existing reports, if any aspects are deemed objectionable, the administration would seek to amend them. This approach raises alarms among experts who fear that it may undermine the integrity of established scientific findings.
Michael Mann, the renowned climate scientist, compared Wright’s aims to past examples of censorship. “That’s precisely what Joseph Stalin did,” he said. In testimony, he pointed to the administration’s efforts to modify or discard scientific evidence as an example of this.
The Trump administration has faced scrutiny for its environmental policies, including efforts to eliminate nearly all pollution regulations and dismiss contributors for the sixth NCA report scheduled for release in 2028. Earlier this year, they took down the official website that used to host any of the NCA’s past reports. This measure only compounded the difficulty in accessing essential climate data. As for now, the newest NCA report is posted on The Guardian’s website.
We welcomed Dr. Rachel Cleetus, a lead economist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, to the discussion. That’s when she made this powerful statement, “Denying that reality doesn’t make it go away. It only keeps people in danger.” Her comments resonate with a deep concern among the public about what it means when scientific evidence is minimized in policy development.
Authored by leading experts in their fields, the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union will collaboratively release this peer-reviewed research focusing on point-specific climate change impacts. This collaborative effort seeks to ensure that credible scientific research remains front and center in discussions about federal climate policy. This new initiative exemplifies the careful process that goes into creating these NCA reports, which are mandated by Congress.
Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made big waves with a similar ambitious proposal. Its stated goal is to replace the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which declared greenhouse gases to be a danger to public health and welfare. This action, alongside Wright’s dismissal of established climate assessments, has intensified fears among scientists and environmental advocates regarding the administration’s commitment to addressing climate change effectively.