New course on climate change Donald Trump has made some major waves since entering the White House, promising to radically change the direction of both domestic and foreign policy. Climate change and environmental regulation is one area where he intends to chart a significantly different course to the previous administration...
T
40
he National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) in the US is world renowned for its space exploration programme, but alongside its work in aerospace research, it is also deeply involved in climate change research. Like much else, that’s all set to change with the incoming US Republican administration, which has signalled a significant change in Nasa’s core purpose. “We see Nasa in an exploration role, in deep space research,” Trump campaign adviser Bob Walker told the Guardian in November, during the transition period. “Earth-centric science is better placed at other agencies where it is their prime mission. My guess is that it would be difficult to stop all ongoing Nasa programs, but future programs should definitely be placed with other agencies.” This would represent a significant shift from the Obama administration, which placed great emphasis on climate change, playing a major role on the international stage and providing support for research. The US signed the Paris Agreement on dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, mitigation, adaptation and finance, which entered into force on 4 November. The new President has taken a significantly more sceptical point of view on climate change however, and now that he’s taken office, he’s set to radically change the direction of US policy. The new President could potentially sack staff at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and limit funding, while there’s still a level of uncertainty over the future of several research programs.
that climate change was a ‘Chinese hoax’, he and his cabinet have still expressed doubt about the extent of human influence over climate change. This extends to advocating major reforms at the EPA, which was established in 1970 under President Nixon in response to growing concern about the impact of human activity on the environment. Its website states its purpose as being to ensure that; ‘all Americans are protected from significant risks to human health and the environment where they live, learn and work.’ The EPA enforces environmental regulations, based on the available scientific information, with the agency itself deeply engaged in research and development. Existing regulations are informed by continued research into the environment, with EPA offices, laboratories and research centres located across the country. The agency has since come under attack however, with Myron Ebell, a former adviser to President Trump’s EPA transition team, calling for the regulator to be significantly overhauled. “They’ve really gotten away with murder in misusing science and justifying regulations on the basis of junk science,” he argued. Currently working as director of Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Ebell believes the original goals of the EPA have been achieved, and that the workforce should be reduced, from the current 15,000 down to around 5,000. “If the Trump administration is serious about keeping Trump’s promises, they will have to reform the use of science,” he said.
Climate change
EPA research
A great deal of research attention has centred on climate change over the last three decades, since Nasa scientist James Hansen’s dramatic evidence to a congressional committee in 1988. “The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now,” he told the committee at the time, evidence which greatly heightened public awareness of climate change. The man himself has published further research over the intervening years, and his 2016 paper in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics made more precise predictions about the evolution of the global climate. The paper warned that without a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels were likely to rise significantly over the next 50-150 years. This forecast is the result of detailed study, combining numerical simulations, paleoclimate data and modern observations to build a more detailed picture of the effects of ice melt from Antarctica and Greenland. Continued high emissions are predicted to have dramatic consequences, including warming of the ice shelves and increasingly powerful storms. The current incumbent in the White House seems likely to prioritise the domestic economy over taking long-term action on climate change however. While he’s softened his tone somewhat over the last few years, rowing back from his earlier assertion
The EPA is involved in research across a range of topics, including bed bugs, the regulation of chemicals and toxins, and the use of landfill sites, yet it is its role with respect to climate change that has attracted particular attention. Researchers collect data and aim to promote a clean energy economy, in line with wider goals around mitigating the impact of climate change. The site currently states that climate change is happening and the earth is warming. It states that the average global temperature rose by 1.5º F over the past century, and is projected to rise by between another 0.5º F-8.6º F over the next hundred years, with potentially serious consequences for human health and natural ecosystems. This is not believed to be purely a function of natural historical fluctuations in the earth’s climate either, with researchers attributing a large degree of the responsibility for climate change to human activity. According to the EPA website, human activities have released large amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, causing it to warm up. This process may have pre-dated even the industrial revolution, with agricultural activities contributing to increased levels of methane in the atmosphere, although it is thought to have accelerated significantly since the latter part of the eighteenth
EU Research
