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Trump Administration Slashes $4M from Princeton’s Climate Research Funding: What It Means for Climate Science?

US funding cut linked to claims of ‘climate anxiety’ raises alarm among scientists and environmental advocates

Photo by Clément Proust
Trump administration slashed about $4 million in federal funding from Princeton University’s climate research department. Photo by Clément Proust

Trump administration has slashed about $4 million in federal funding from Princeton University’s climate research department, citing concerns that the research contributed to “climate anxiety” among students and other young people, according to The Guardian.

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The New York Times reported that the government research grants to Princeton University have been cut off because the White House considers its work on topics including sea level rise, coastal flooding and global warming to be promoting “exaggerated and implausible climate threats”.

“The awards to Princeton are no longer aligned with the programme objectives of NOAA, a sub-agency of the department of commerce, and are no longer in keeping with the Trump administration’s priorities,” the department said in a press release.

“Using federal funds to perpetuate these narratives does not align with the priorities of this administration and such time and resources can be better utilised elsewhere,” it added.

This funding reduction is particularly concerning given that the White House also announced the pulling of funding for the US Global Change Research Program, a Congress-mandated body that produces the government’s pre-eminent climate report summarising the impacts of rising global temperatures across the country.  

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On April 8, Trump signed another executive order directing states and cities to stop enforcing laws that would protect the environment or mitigate climate change, such as those holding fossil fuel companies liable for the damaging effects of extreme weather events exacerbated by the climate emergency, reported The Guardian.

The order was labeled as “illegal” and “disgusting” by the advocates of climate. “This order is an illegal, disgusting attempt to force everyday people to pay for the rising toll of climate disasters, while shielding the richest people in the world from accountability,” Aru Shiney-Ajay, the Executive Director of the youth-led environmental justice group the Sunrise Movement told The Guardian.

Impact of Cuts on Science

Trump has made considerable moves to steer the United States clear of involvement in the global movement of taking climate right from the first day of assuming office as a President when he pulled the US for the second time out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

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Even if the US now takes a backseat, the rest of the world needs to keep going and "know that there is a huge amount of people in the country who are still working on it and care about this topic," said Di Liberto, a public affairs specialist among those recently fired from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told DW.

The world won't be able to predict the future or understand the increasing risks of climate change without climate science or with gaps in it, said Di Liberto adding, "It'd be like driving a car blindfolded and then hoping you stay on the road".

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