White House Disbands Climate Change Assessment Committee

A council vital to assessing climate change and the impacts it threatens to bring to the United States was allowed to expire Sunday, effectively disbanding the committee of 15 scientists, academia, government and nonprofit individuals.

The council was officially called the Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment and it was responsible mainly for making sense of all the climate data collected on the country. The committee was also responsible for the completion of the congressionally mandatory National Climate Assessment that is released every four years and next scheduled to be released in 2018.

Additionally the committee broadly worked on communication, engagement, risk assessment and management, technology and many other activities necessary for addressing climate change in the U.S. A banner notice on the top of the committee’s website says : Per the terms of the charter, the Federal Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment (Committee) expired on August 20, 2017. The Department of Commerce and NOAA appreciate the efforts of the Committee and offer sincere thanks to each of the Committee members for their service.

President Donald Trump didn’t exactly disband the committee that worked to help the government and its agencies understand climate change, he just didn’t do anything to keep it in place. Committee members said they were not particularly surprised by the decision not to keep the council going, reported CNN. Trump himself and members of his administration have denied the role of human activity in climate change and Trump even called global warming a hoax. These ideas have made their way into the policy of the administration.

The administration has not taken a strong stance on mitigating or adapting to climate change. In June President Trump announced that the U.S. would no longer be part of the Paris Climate Accord that is designed to help bring down emissions worldwide.

The experts on the committee told CNN they were concerned that without their help the climate report could end up end up being to dense and lacking in context to actually help the public and local and federal government use it. Earlier this month the Climate Science Special Report was released without being reviewed by the White House first. This special report is a part of the Climate Assessment expected in 2018. It’s unclear whether the release of the special report had anything to do with the decision to not continue the committee’s term.