Trump cancels NASA’s greenhouse gas monitoring system after scrapping clean air regulation
Space agency’s carbon monitoring system use satellite and aircraft instruments to monitor carbon dioxide and methane levels
Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
Donald Trump has cancelled NASA’s greenhouse gas monitoring system, prompting concern it will hinder efforts to bring down global emissions.
The space agency’s Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) has until now used satellite and aircraft instruments to monitor carbon dioxide and methane levels remotely - spending $10m (£7.35m) each year.
But the White House has now scrapped the funding as part of its wider attack on climate science.
The moves jeopardises plans to verify levels of emissions in the US.
"If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the [Paris climate] agreement," Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University's Centre for International Environment and Resource Policy, told Science Magazine.
Stephen Hagen, a senior scientist at Applied GeoSolutions in New Hampshire, said scrapping the system was “disappointing”.
“[This] means we're going to be less capable of tracking changes in carbon," he added.
The CMS has been an obvious target for Mr Trump as it is associated with climate treaties.
In June last year Mr Trump began the withdrawal process from the Paris accord.
The agreement was signed under former President Barack Obama's administration in December 2015 by nearly 200 countries to curb global carbon emissions and contain global warming to 2C.
Mr Trump has called climate change a "hoax" in the past - one perpetrated by the Chinese.
"The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive," he tweeted in 2012.
The president said when announcing the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement that the deal put American workers - particularly in the coal industry - at an "economic disadvantage".
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments