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The above report was edited for brevity.
The White House removed the official in charge of the federal program that produces the U.S. government’s definitive reports on climate change, three people familiar with the situation said.
The official, Michael Kuperberg, a climate scientist who had been executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) since July 2015, was told Friday evening to return to his previous position as a scientist at the Energy Department. He had been expected to stay on through the production of the fifth edition of the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment.
The climate assessment examines the present-day harms that climate change is having on the United States and makes projections about future damage down to the local level from greenhouse-gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
The USGCRP is a program Congress created to help coordinate the climate science programs of 13 federal agencies. The program works to “advance understanding of the changing Earth system” and facilitates the production of the National Climate Assessment and other reports. Its reports also help inform the work of international organizations such as the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Kuperberg directed that office through the release of the fourth edition of the report, which detailed the potentially dire economic and health consequences for Americans should the country take little to no action to cut emissions and prepare for climate change’s effects, such as sea-level rise, droughts and hotter, longer-lasting heat waves.
The report, produced by federal and outside scientists, angered the White House, since President Trump has consistently downplayed the seriousness of the climate threat and the scientific consensus that human activities are playing the dominant role in warming the planet.
Kuperberg’s removal was confirmed by a current federal official and a former White House official, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the matter. It was also confirmed by Don Wuebbles, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois who was director of the Fourth National Climate Assessment and is a friend of Kuperberg’s.
His dismissal comes just as climate scientist Betsy Weatherhead takes over as the federal coordinator of the next assessment, which is just getting underway. Weatherhead will work with the USGCRP but be formally located within the U.S. Geological Survey. While the bulk of the work on the report will take place under Joe Biden’s administration, government officials are starting to select which scientists will participate in writing it now, with the first deadline for author nominations coming up on Saturday.
Removing Kuperberg could allow the White House to insert someone whose climate science views more closely align with Trump’s.
The removal comes in the wake of the hiring of two recent high-level political officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), David Legates and Ryan Maue, who are on the record challenging the seriousness of climate change.
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