United States President Donald Trump’s latest move to slash support and funding for decades-old climate and weather research institutions is a “huge disservice” to the American people and communities worldwide that rely on climate data, a senior global sustainable development expert said, warning that the shift risks undermining climate research.
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Last week, a top US official said the government would be “breaking up” the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which was established in 1960 and maintains tools for global weather monitoring. This includes the Weather Research and Forecasting Model, used to predict storms and hurricanes, as well as the Community Earth System Model for oceanic, carbon and land surface data.
The decision follows the Trump administration’s funding cuts for other US climate-focused agencies, including the climate and weather research arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Experts warn that the loss of this data will jeopardise efforts to adapt to more extreme weather and phenomena related to climate change.
“We can’t lose the data measurements of the planet, because if we don’t know what’s happening to the planet, we won’t know how to adapt, how to stay resilient [and] we won’t understand what’s coming,” Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor and president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, told Eco-Business in an interview last month.
More recently, the American Geophysiscal Union, an international scientific non-profit of more than 50,000 researchers, said that the NCAR “provides key weather and climate research and data that is critical for businesses, the public, and advancing research.”
“Its advanced computing allows it to run weather and climate models that help predict severe storms, allows for farmers to prepare for long-term weather patterns, and airlines to fly safely,” the union said in a petition to protect the centre.
NCAR data on the Asia Pacific region has been used to produce, among others, a January 2024 paper on the effects of climate change in the South China Sea a September 2024 paper on the drivers of extreme rainfall over mainland Southeast Asia over time.
Sachs said Trump’s position on climate change, which the US president has called a “scam”, does not reflect the climate action that many Americans want.
“[Trump] represents the views of the oil lobby – when he says climate change is a hoax, he’s speaking the languages of Big Oil and trying to deflect from the fact that we need an energy transformation now,” said Sachs.
Jeffrey Sachs, president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (right), speaks to Eco-Business managing partner Junice Yeo (left) and assistant editor Samantha Ho (middle). Image: Eco-Business
China ‘can do more’
Sachs said there was also room for greater leadership in climate diplomacy from China, though this should begin with stronger domestic emissions targets.
China is targeting net zero emissions by 2060, and in September announced that it would cut greenhouse gasses by seven to 10 per cent by 2035. Experts have said that these targets are not ambitious enough to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming threshold.
“Chinese leaders say [that a 2050 net zero target is] too ambitious; it’s not realistic. But China is so good at large-scale infrastructure building and transformation, I would say to China’s leaders, go back and look closely at this. You can do it faster,” Sachs said.
He praised China for remaining committed to the Paris Agreement despite Trump’s withdrawal of the US, and pointed to efforts to its decarbonise infrastructure development globally, including the greening of the country’s Belt and Road Initiative, a long-running economic development effort by Beijing to boost trade and connectivity across Asia, Europe and Africa.
Sachs also cited green industry efforts being championed by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, an alliance of countries which include Russia, India, Iran and other Central Asian nations.
However, he said China could go even further to support global sustainable development efforts by hosting a United Nations campus focused on the green transformation.
“There isn’t really a UN centre in the world focused on energy transformation,” he said, despite the existence of programmes and mechanisms such as UN-Energy, which supports inter-agency collaboration. “I would bring all of these efforts into a major operational base.”
Sachs pointed out that Asia does not currently host a major UN operational headquarters, although it is home to several regional offices. Headquartered in New York, the UN has major offices across Europe and in Nairobi, Kenya, where the UN Environment Programme and UN-Habitat are headquartered.
“China should host one of these, because the UN is a worldwide organisation. It’s not a local organization of New York, a national organisation of the US or an institution of the Western world,” said Sachs. “It is the truly global institution. So as one of the world’s great leaders, I’d like China to host a major UN campus.”
