What law established the National Climate Assessment?
The Global Change Research Act of 1990 established the legal framework for the National Climate Assessment. This law required a report to the President and Congress every four years.
The Global Change Research Act of 1990 established the legal framework for the National Climate Assessment. This law required a report to the President and Congress every four years.
The first assessment appeared in 2000 with the title Climate Change Impacts on the United States. It contained twenty regional studies involving dozens of scientific experts.
Thirteen federal agencies collaborated to produce these assessments including NOAA, the Department of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Interior, State, Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, and USAID.
Richard H. Moss chaired the successor committee established in 2015. That fifteen-member group focused on sustained national climate assessment efforts.
Work halted on the 28th of April 2025 when funding was eliminated during the second Trump Administration. All authors, scientists, and contributors scheduled for the sixth assessment were fired that day.