Fear and resolve: How climate scientists are bracing for a potential Trump 2.0 administration

If Donald Trump acts on his promises during a second term as U.S. president, he could implement major changes to climate policy within days of his January 20 inauguration. These changes might include withdrawing the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate agreement for a second time, rolling back air pollution regulations, and opening public lands for fossil fuel development.

Many climate scientists are preparing for the possibility of a repeat of the previous Trump administration’s actions. “There is certainly concern about the potential for another round of the damaging policies implemented before, which haven’t been fully reversed,” says Juan Declet-Barreto, senior social scientist for climate vulnerability at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts. However, at a recent gathering of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington D.C., some of the 30,000 attendees showed a resolve to tackle the challenge, whether through activism or by enhancing their public communication on the climate crisis.

“This might be surprising, but I actually feel a bit reinvigorated,” says Eric Steig, a polar researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle. “If people believe scientists are nonpartisan, this is our chance to keep doing solid science and show that.” He adds, “It almost feels like an exciting opportunity to do my job even better.”

During Trump’s first term (2017-2021), his administration appointed officials who restricted climate science discussions across federal agencies and attempted to challenge the scientific consensus on human-driven climate change. While it’s still unclear what he will be able to achieve in his second term, Trump has hired many individuals linked to a conservative policy agenda called Project 2025. This plan advocates for the U.S. stepping back from global climate leadership, including proposals to dismantle the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is responsible for weather forecasts and climate monitoring, and to reduce the regulatory power of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Several scientists working at federal agencies declined to speak to Nature on the record, fearing that doing so could jeopardize their jobs. Trump has stated he will make it easier to fire federal employees once he takes office. In preparation for potential job losses, some researchers are financially planning and downloading private copies of emails and work-related data, some of which became inaccessible during his first administration.

Others, not employed by the government, are exploring ways to preserve climate data sets that depend on government resources. One such grassroots initiative, the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, was formed in 2016, prior to Trump’s first presidency. “We’re trying to identify the most-used tools that may be at risk,” says Dan Pisut, a senior principal engineer at geographic-information-systems company Esri in Redlands, California. He adds, “For example, if you’re a farmer without access to drought-forecasting information, that’s a significant problem.”

The emphasis is not only on archiving federal data but also on discovering ways to repurpose and distribute it to the stakeholders who need it. For example, Trump’s team has indicated plans to cut programs focused on environmental equity. As a result, data sets like the EPA’s EJScreen—an important tool for mapping communities most vulnerable to environmental risks—are being prioritized for preservation. These at-risk communities are often low-income and situated in areas with high levels of pollution.