Climate News: Trump to cut funding to key climate body NOAA

The Trump administration is planning to implement significant changes to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) along with a 25% cut to its 2026 budget, according to a draft memo released by the White House. The proposal would also slash science budgets at NASA, dismantling key climate research efforts and prompting warnings from former agency officials about national security and economic risks.

The suggested cuts from the Office of Management and Budget would hit the agency’s research functions the hardest, with climate research funding reduced from $485 million to $171 million. This would effectively eliminate NOAA’s scientific research division, one of the world’s premier Earth science research centres.

Programmes that retain funding, including research into tornado warnings and ocean acidification, would be relocated to the National Weather Service and National Ocean Service offices. Dr Rick Spinrad, who led NOAA under President Biden, said the likelihood that this budget would pass Congress was low: “I don’t think it will withstand congressional scrutiny.”

We’re talking about a wholesale dismantling of NASA’s scientific fleet and the pipeline of future missions

Casey Dreier, Chief of Space Policy, the Planetary Society

NASA would lose 20% of its overall funding, with deep reductions to planetary science and the cancellation of major missions, including the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope and Mars Sample Return. The cuts also target the National Marine Fisheries Service and other climate-related programs, redirecting priorities to align with expanding fossil fuel energy development. The White House’s proposal would “take us back to the 1950s in terms of our scientific footing and the American people”, says Craig McLean, a former director of NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, whose career spanned multiple administrations.

Although the proposed cuts aren’t final, they have alarmed scientists and science advocates alike. “We’re talking about a wholesale dismantling of NASA’s scientific fleet and the pipeline of future missions,” says Casey Dreier, Chief of Space Policy for the Planetary Society, a non-profit space organisation in Pasadena, California.

“Trump’s budget plan for NOAA is both outrageous and dangerous,” says a statement released by Zoe Lofgren, a member of the US House of Representatives from California, who is the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. “This budget will leave NOAA hollowed out.”