NASA, the U.S. space agency known for its climate research and weather forecasts, announced it will cease publishing the National Climate Assessments—key reports detailing the impacts of climate change across the United States. Until recently, these reports were publicly accessible on government websites. The decision comes amid a wave of climate policy rollbacks by the Trump administration, which have triggered widespread criticism.
Earlier this month, official government websites hosting these trusted climate assessments were taken offline. The reports had served as vital tools for government agencies and the public, offering regional forecasts and adaptation strategies.
At the time, the White House claimed NASA would retain the reports to comply with a 1990 law mandating their release—a plan the agency initially confirmed. But on Monday, NASA announced it had scrapped that plan.
“The program has fulfilled its legal obligation by submitting the reports to Congress,” NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens said in an email. “NASA has no legal duty to host the data on ‘globalchange.gov’.” This effectively means that neither the climate assessment data nor the federal scientific office coordinating the project will remain accessible through NASA.
Climate experts reacted with alarm. Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, condemned the move: “These reports and websites were created for the American people, funded by taxpayers, and they contain critical information needed to stay safe in a changing climate—as the current wave of disasters tragically underscores.”
Environmental scientists and advocates warned that discontinuing the reports marks a troubling retreat from transparency, especially at a time when accurate climate data is urgently needed to confront a growing crisis.
John Holdren, former science advisor to President Obama, went further, accusing the Trump administration of deliberate censorship: “Trump doesn’t want people to know. He’s long intended to suppress or bury these reports.”
Holdren criticized the administration’s pattern of misleading actions, describing this latest move as “a bait-and-switch” tactic: “They tried to calm the outrage over shutting down ‘globalchange.gov’ by promising to preserve the reports—only to reverse course two weeks later, without apology.”
He added: “They simply don’t want the public to have access to rigorously compiled, peer-reviewed information about how climate change is already impacting our farms, forests, fisheries—as well as storms, floods, wildfires, and coastal communities—and how those risks will worsen without coordinated action.”
The latest National Climate Assessment, published in 2023, warned that climate change is undermining security, health, and livelihoods across the country—often hitting minority communities, especially Native Americans, the hardest.
Since the start of his second term, President Trump has doubled down on his anti-climate stance: withdrawing again from the 2015 Paris Agreement, exiting other international bodies, dismissing long-established scientific findings, promoting fossil fuel expansion, and slashing support for U.S. environmental agencies and research institutions.
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