No part of the country is unscathed from climate change, according to the federal government’s new National Climate Assessment.
The White House, in coordination with 14 federal agencies, today released the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA), a comprehensive report on the impacts of climate on the United States and what future warming may hold for ecosystems, the economy, and communities across the country.
The report establishes that the effects of rising temperatures are already “worsening across every region of the United States” sending ecosystems into death spirals, reshaping crops and forests, and fueling deadly heat waves. And without deeper cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions and accelerated adaptation to changes already underway, the report authors warn that “severe climate risks to the United States will continue to grow.”
Since 1990, Congress has required federal agencies to figure out how climate change will affect the country, with a report due at least every four years. Each assessment tallies up the latest damages, summarizes the newest science, and presents a sharper picture of the future. Unlike other major climate change reports, like those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Climate Assessment is meant to explicitly inform policy and action, from interstate emissions trading rules to how many cooling shelters a city will need during a heat wave.
The new assessment highlights how scientists have improved their ability to attribute signals of human-caused warming in extreme weather events like storm surges and heat waves. In addition, it tracks efforts to adapt to climate change, particularly incorporating traditional Indigenous knowledge. It also dedicates more space to racial and economic disparities in climate impacts.
In a conference call with reporters, White House officials highlighted the new findings and used the report’s release to boast about their efforts to curb heat-trapping gasses, deploy clean energy, and adapt to warming through programs like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The presentation and release of the latest assessment stand in stark contrast to the last iteration of the report in 2018, when the Trump administration quietly posted it over a holiday weekend.
The question, as always, is how much the report will change the country’s trajectory on climate change. Though US emissions are declining, they aren’t falling fast enough to stay in line with the country’s climate change commitments. As international delegates gather later this month for negotiations at the COP28 climate conference to further map out how they’ll address warming, the US will be one of many countries coming to the table with alarmingly little progress on a problem that the research continues to show is getting worse.The National Climate Assessment is a scientific report with strong political implications
The National Climate Assessment has the dual remits of summarizing the latest in climate science and making it understandable for the public. Since the report is required by law, the whims of whoever is in the White House can’t quash it. But politics do change what’s emphasized and what’s downplayed.
The last report cycle came under President Donald Trump, and scientists worried that the climate change denier would attempt to block its release. Though the report did publish, the administration dropped it on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in 2018. None of the federal agencies involved in assembling it helped publicize the release, and Trump afterward told reporters he “didn’t believe it.”
Now, the Biden administration is leading with a splashier release: The fifth assessment has new bells and whistles, including an accompanying podcast, art series, and even a poetry anthology compiled by two poet laureates and a climate scientist.
