The Trump administration has dismissed all of the researchers working on the next installment of the National Climate Assessment, a crucial report on how climate change is affecting the country
By James Dinneen
29 April 2025
Climate change plays a role in disasters like Colorado’s Marshall fire, which destroyed 1000 homes in December 2021
Jim West/Alamy
The Trump administration has dismissed all of the nearly 400 researchers working on the next US National Climate Assessment, a move likely to delay – if not prevent – the completion of this key report on how climate change is affecting the country.
“The Trump administration senselessly took a hatchet to a crucial and comprehensive U.S. climate science report by dismissing its authors without cause or a plan,” Rachel Cleetus at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an author of the report, said in a statement.
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The move is the latest blow to work on the 6th National Climate Assessment, a sweeping analysis meant to inform both federal and state governments about the risks climate change poses – and what the US is doing about it. A 1990 law passed by the US Congress mandates that the government produce such an assessment every four years.
The next report isn’t due until 2027, but work was already under way on the massive compendium, which can often run to over a thousand pages. The previous assessment, published in 2023, described compounding climate impacts across the country that “are making it harder to maintain safe homes and healthy families; reliable public services; a sustainable economy; thriving ecosystems, cultures, and traditions; and strong communities”.
Earlier in April, the Trump administration cancelled a contract for a consulting group that was coordinating research on the next assessment, working under the US Global Change Research Program. This followed widespread firings across scientific agencies that contribute to the report, as well as other steps the administration has taken to limit climate and weather research.