Scientific societies say they'll do national climate assessment after Trump dismissed report authors

They need that knowledge to figure out how to adapt to harms in the future and even the present, Hayhoe said.

The national assessment, unlike global United Nations documents, highlights what’s happening to weather not just in the nation but at regional and local levels.

Jones said he hopes the societies’ version of the assessment can be done in just one year.

The last climate assessment report, released in 2023, said that climate change is ”harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security.”

In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the assessment was just as blunt, saying: “Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth.”

But University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, who led one of 2018’s two national reports, said he worries about what kind of document this new administration will try to issue, if any.