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By Brian
Kahn
In my dozen years
covering climate, nothing compares to the
whiplash of the last nine months. At this time
last year, the US was issuing gold-standard
climate science and enacting a fitful policy to
speed the energy transition. Now, the government
is memory-holing some of that science and
outright blocking wind and solar power.
My colleagues Zahra
Hirji and Eric Roston — also veteran climate
reporters — and I spent the past month taking a
step back to see what the hundreds of
incremental actions to thwart research add up
to for the US and the climate. It’s what
Michael Gerrard, faculty director of Columbia
University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change
Law, described as “a cluster-bomb approach.”
What’s clear from
our reporting is that the cuts to programs and
disappearing data mean that the country and many
global institutions that rely on US science will
have a fuzzier view of what the future could
hold. At the same time that the Trump
administration has gutted funding for
world-class research programs, it has also
welcomed in researchers with fringe
views.
The Energy
Department put out a report downplaying the
severity of climate change in July,
authored by five authors handpicked by Secretary
Chris Wright. Scientists whose work the analysis
cites have criticized it as full
of misrepresentations. Among its claims:
carbon dioxide is beneficial for plants and
climate change isn’t increasing the odds of
extreme weather, such as heat waves, wildfires
and flooding.
The science
undergirds the need for policies to cut
emissions in order to avert even worse climate
impacts. Against the backdrop of these moves to
challenge science, the Trump administration and
Republicans in Congress have wiped out incentives
for things like electric vehicles and solar
panels. Trump has also expressed disdain for
wind energy in particular, and his
administration has thrown up a number of
roadblocks that stand to effectively put the
industry on ice.
“Under President
Trump’s leadership, agencies are refocusing on
their core missions and shifting away from
ideological activism,” said White House
spokeswoman Taylor Rogers when asked about the
government-wide shift.
The Environmental
Protection Agency, meanwhile, is attempting to roll back the
endangerment finding, which allows it to
regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The agency,
in essence, has proposed handcuffing itself.
As a result, the US
is now on track to emit hundreds of millions
more tons of greenhouse gases in the next
decade, according to Princeton University
researchers.
There are also
ramifications for the public. The administration
stopped updating the US
billion-dollar disaster database earlier
this year, even as the number of costly extreme
weather events has risen to nearly triple the
average since 1980. Insurers keep detailed
information on all types of disasters, but
industry insiders have warned that not updating
the federal database will leave the public in
the dark and less likely to take measures to
reduce the risk of catastrophic losses.
At the same time,
Trump and Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Kristi Noem have called for eliminating the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, which DHS
oversees. That would put the burden of disaster
response on states, localities and individuals.
Trump launched a review council “tasked with
reforming and streamlining the agency,” a group
that’s set to release recommendations later this
fall.
But taken as a
whole, our new reporting for this story shows
scientists and former policymakers are alarmed
by what those actions mean for climate science
and the decisions that rely on it.
“Some damage will
take decades to regain. Some cannot be
repaired,” said Julio Friedmann, chief scientist
of advisory firm Carbon Direct and a former
Energy Department official who served in two
administrations.
Read the full
story on Bloomberg.com.
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