Trump Halts Federal Scientists From Progressing on Global Climate Change Report

On Friday, CNN reported the Trump administration told U.S. federal scientists to cease assisting an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report due in 2029. IPCC is the global authority on climate change, and its report informs lawmakers globally.  

Additionally, an international meeting of IPCC authors that was scheduled to occur in China this week is in limbo. CNN reported Kate Calvin, NASA’s chief scientist and senior climate advisor, was intended to co-chair the discussion but was affected by the stop-work order, according to the scientist involved in the report. The meeting was planned to talk about the next steps in the report’s development. 

On his first day in office this year, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, an international climate change treaty in which nearly 200 countries agreed to work together to limit global warming. This behavior repeated an action Trump took in his first term. 

In January, Copernicus reported 2024 saw unprecedented global temperatures, following on from the remarkable warmth of 2023. In turn, last year was the warmest year on record. It also became the first year with an average temperature clearly exceeding 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level— a threshold set by the Paris Agreement to reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. Multiple global records also were broken, for greenhouse gas levels, and for both air temperature and sea surface temperature, contributing to extreme events, including floods, heatwaves and wildfires. These data highlight the accelerating impacts of human-caused climate change, Copernicus said.