The Trump administration has dismantled key climate science programs, removed publicly accessible reports, and cut research funding, marking a shift from climate denial to deliberate data suppression.
In short:
- The administration dismissed 400 experts working on the next National Climate Assessment and removed all previous reports from federal websites.
- Agencies have pulled funding from climate modeling and monitoring programs, including those tracking carbon dioxide levels and billion-dollar disasters.
- Officials are working to decouple climate from health and infrastructure policy by erasing scientific references and legal frameworks that support regulation.
Key quote:
“If you suppress information and data, then you don’t have the evidence you need to be able to create regulations, strengthen regulations, and even to combat the repeal of regulations.”
— Gretchen Gehrke, member of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative
Why this matters:
When the government erases climate data, it obscures how rising temperatures affect real-world systems — like food supply, public health, and disaster planning. The National Climate Assessments offered plain-language explanations of complex threats: hotter summers stressing power grids, sea level rise reshaping coastlines, or droughts disrupting agriculture. Deleting this data strips the public and policymakers of tools needed to prepare. It also disrupts legal foundations for regulating pollution by undermining the scientific case that greenhouse gases endanger human health. This rollback occurs even as climate impacts accelerate — record-breaking wildfires, deadly floods, and extreme heat are no longer projections, but present-day events.
Read more: Climate data is vanishing from government websites, raising alarms
