In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose its hard-line views on other nations, building on the U.S. retreat from the Paris accord and the Administration’s recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change. The Administration’s prime target has been the National Climate Assessment, produced by an interagency task force roughly every four years since 2000. A large goal of political appointees in the Administration is not just to change the climate assessment’s methodology, but also to question its conclusions by creating a new climate review panel. This effort is led by a 79-year-old physicist who has become known for defending the virtues of carbon dioxide.
By Coral Davenport and Mark Landler. New York Times. May 27, 2019.
