AGU urges US commitment to climate science

 

AGU press contact: Josh Weinberg, [email protected] 

WASHINGTON — AGU, home to the world’s largest community of climate scientists, urges the Trump administration to immediately renew U.S. federal commitment to climate science, including the restoration of data, personnel, grants and collaborations. The U.S. must restore critical climate science leadership for a secure, prosperous future for the country and the world.  

“Climate change is real. It is happening,” AGU President Brandon Jones said. “Climate science is real. It is necessary. AGU represents the scientific community with the expertise to address both the causes and the impacts of a warming world of unprecedented flooding, fires, drought, heat waves and storms. If we choose to bury our heads in the sand, we cannot address the challenges that are already here.”  

President Donald Trump has signaled an aggressive retreat from climate science commitments since the start of his second term, retracting clean energy programs and announcing imminent withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other international climate agreements. The new administration has removed mentions of climate change from government websites, targeted grants that mention climate and instructed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a leading climate science agency, to identify all climate-related grants.  

This week, the administration pulled back from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), halted the contract for the sole U.S.-based team that provides project managers for one of three main IPCC working groups and blocked federal scientists and diplomats from participating in a planning meeting for the seventh assessment report. The IPCC is a massive organizational effort brings together leading scientists from around the world to assess the state of warming and its impacts. U.S. researchers typically serve as a large proportion of the authors.  

“If you study the Earth, as AGU members do, the signs of climate change are unavoidable,” Jones said. “They’re in our weather, oceans, atmosphere, soil and ecosystems. Our members have devoted their lives to climate research because it’s so important for our future — and our children’s future.”  

Further global warming increases the risk of reaching climate tipping points, which are critical thresholds beyond which a system reorganizes, often abruptly and irreversibly, such as ice-sheet collapse and rainforest dieback. AGU’s position statement on climate change notes that ignoring warming trends threatens food, water and energy security, risking costly social and environmental disruption, including:  

• shifts in agricultural and fisheries productivity;  

• submergence and loss of land due to sea-level rise;  

• damages to homes, businesses and critical infrastructure;  

• collapsing insurance markets; 

• diminished labor productivity from excessive heat;  

• disruption in education systems;  

• deteriorated air, water and soil quality; 

• rising infectious disease transmission; and 

• migration and population displacement. 

Funding freezes across multiple science agencies have injected chaos and fear into the U.S. science sector. AGU is concerned about rumors of large cuts of more than 50% to NOAA and the National Science Foundation, the engine of U.S. basic science, in the President’s 2025 budget proposal to Congress. Such deep cuts risk losses to a generation of young scientists. Throttling public science funding, even in the short term, will have long-term consequences for the U.S science enterprise and will hurt our economic future.  

Experts on climate science are available to comment on climate impacts and the essential contributions of NOAA and public funding for science. Reach out to us at [email protected].  

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AGU (www.agu.org) is a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in Earth and space sciences. Through broad and inclusive partnerships, AGU aims to advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C. and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct.