By Meryl Phair ’21
Environmental Editor
The executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, Dr. Michael Kuperberg, was removed as lead scientist for the National Climate Assessment on Nov. 9 and is expected to be replaced by David Legates, a longtime supporter and advocate for climate change denial groups. The decision came directly from the Trump administration and follows four years of policy decisions that increased environmental degradation and reined in large-scale federal initiatives necessary to adequately address climate change. Nearly 100 environmental and climate change policies have been rolled back under the administration.
The NCA is the U.S. government’s effort to research climate change science. It operates under the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which establishes teams of experts and works with the Federal Advisory Committee. NCA research is collected and filed in National Climate Assessment Reports reviewed by the public, experts, federal agencies and a panel from the National Academy of Sciences. There have been four official NCA reports since the Global Change Research Act of 1990, with a fifth volume, known as NCA5, currently being worked on and anticipated to come out in 2023. Kuperberg had run the USGCRP since 2015 and was working toward developing NCA5. He will now be transferred to the Department of Energy.
Kuperberg’s removal is one in a string of White House replacements to control climate change rhetoric. Neil Chatterjee, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, was removed from his position on Friday, Nov. 6, after publicly announcing that he would support the use of renewable energy and sustainable power sources. This announcement was a direct turnaround from his previous stances on climate, as Chatterjee has been a reliable supporter of the fossil fuel industry for the past two years.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation’s most prominent climate science agency, similarly experienced an installation of new staff members per White House orders. These staff members have been noted to question the validity of climate change science and instituted stricter policies on communication within the agency itself. In October, chief NOAA scientist Craig McLean sent the new appointees a message requesting acknowledgment of the agency’s scientific integrity policy that explicitly denounces manipulations in research and the presentation of ideology-based findings. McLean was promptly removed from his position by Erik Noble, a White House policy advisor.
The head of President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition team and director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Myron Ebell, has stated that the replacement of Kuperberg has been underway for weeks. David
Legates, a geography professor at the University of Delaware, works for NOAA as the deputy assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction. In the words of Science Magazine, Legates claims that “burning more fossil fuels would benefit humanity and that policy to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions is a regulatory scheme that runs counter to market principles.” He has also argued that carbon dioxide “is plant food, not a pollutant.”
The assumption of the role by Legates could have far-reaching implications on climate policy and NCA5. According to The New York Times, a biased or diminished climate assessment could support fossil fuel companies’ legal battles over inflicted climate damage. It could provide a counter argument for congressional efforts in limiting carbon emissions, further exacerbating climate change. It could also weaken the strength of the “endangerment finding” by the Environmental Protection Agency, the official scientific discovery from 2009 that found that greenhouse gas emissions threaten human health and are therefore required to be regulated by the government.
The succession of removals of qualified experts within climate change research has raised serious concerns for the Earth’s future. This dilemma presents obstacles along with potential setbacks for an incoming Biden administration.