USA Climate Program Threatened by Budget Cuts

USA Climate Program Threatened by Budget Cuts



2007 September -   The Bush administration's 
climate research program has helped scientists clarify some basic facts 
about global warming, but has done little to provide much-needed 
information about how society might mitigate or adapt to the changing 
climate, a National Academy of Sciences committee said today. 
The independent panel warned that the progress of the program is 
threatened by a lack of strong leadership and budgetary authority and by 
the administration's plan to reduce the number of satellites and other 
instruments used to monitor the climate. 
The panel also criticized the Climate Change Science Program, CCSP, for 
failing to adequately communicate its research with stakeholders and for 
completing only two of 21 planned assessments of climate science. 
"Discovery science and understanding of the climate system are proceeding 
well, but use of that knowledge and support decision making and to manage 
risks and opportunities of climate change is proceeding slowly," the 15 
member committee concluded in its report. 
The Bush administration created the CCSP in 2002 to facilitate climate 
change research across 13 federal agencies - the program essentially 
absorbed the U.S. Global Change Research Program, USGCRP.

In January a different National Academy panel warned that half the 
scientific instruments on the nation's environmental satellites are 
expected to stop working by 2010. The Bush administration has delayed or 
canceled a number of planned satellite missions and recommended not 
replacing some aging satellites for budgetary reasons. 
These instruments are "critical for documenting how the climate has 
changed," Ramanathan told reporters. "The committee is very concerned 
about this." 
The panel highlighted bureaucratic delays as the main reason for CCSP's 
failure to deliver its promised reports on climate science. The 21 reports 
were all supposed to have been released by 2006, but only two have been 
completed. 
In addition, the CCSP has not done a good job in communicating the results 
of its research with stakeholders outside of the scientific world or the 
federal government, the committee said. 
"Efforts to identify or engage in a two-way dialogue with state and local 
officials, nongovernmental organizations, and the climate change 
technology community have generally been limited and ad hoc," the report 
said. "As a result, the program is not gaining the input it needs on what 
scientifically based CCSP products to create, and opportunities to inform 
decision making are being missed." 
The CCSP did not answer requests for comment on the study. 
The National Academy of Sciences committee plans to issue recommendations 
for how to improve the CCSP program next year.
 
Copies of "Evaluating Progress Of The U.S. Climate Change Science Program: 
Methods And Preliminary Results" will be available from the National 
Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at 
http://www.nap.edu. 

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