How nonprofits and academia are stepping up to salvage US climate programs
1 min read
Summary
Nonprofit organizations are working to preserve efforts to modernize greenhouse-gas measurements, which are under threat from the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back federal climate programs.
Observers believe it is essential to sustain US efforts to understand the risks of climate change, even if they are simply stopgap measures while Trump remains in power.
The proposed coalition will build on the National Strategy to Advance an Integrated US Greenhouse Gas Measurement, Monitoring and Information System, which was nullified by the Trump administration.
The Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies have collected information about greenhouse gases for years, but there is a two-year lag on publishing the data.
The new initiative aims to adopt state-of-the-art tools and methods to improve the accuracy of these emissions estimates.
The Trump administration has sought to shut down programs that generate emissions data and cut funding for organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Nonprofits and academic groups are also trying to keep US scientists involved in the UN’s major climate change report.