Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday night the Trump administration is updating the National Climate Assessments that have been previously published, which the administration recently removed from government websites.
The National Climate Assessments are congressionally mandated research reports authored by hundreds of scientists and experts, intended to inform the country of the latest climate science and the current and future impacts of climate change in the US. The reports take years to research, draft and publish and go through multiple rounds of peer review, with all 13 federal agencies that conduct climate research. An independent National Academy of Sciences panel signs off on the content.
The first Trump administration signed off on and released the Fourth US National Climate Assessment in 2018, although it attempted to bury the report's news by releasing it on Black Friday. The current administration has deleted all previous reports from government websites, fired the scientists working on the next iteration of the report, and recently issued a separate report compiled by five researchers that questioned the severity of climate change.
Altering or revising previously published assessments would be a significant escalation in the administration's attempts to wipe credible climate science off the record.
Read more at the link in @cnnpolitics's bio.
📷: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images/File
Material supply chains showed renewed complexity as Europe delayed enforcement of deforestation rules, affecting traceable sourcing of mass-timber and the embodied carbon in materials that underpin sustainable building practices. The deferral reinforces the need for lifecycle assessment and end-of-life reuse in construction, ensuring renewable building materials meet the standards of environmental product declarations (EPDs). Clients now prioritise deforestation-free, rights-respecting, low embodied carbon materials supported by circular economy in construction frameworks and robust whole life carbon assessments.
Rising energy prices across North America increase attention on energy-efficient buildings, deep retrofit strategies and life cycle cost optimisation. Developers are integrating eco-design for buildings that enhance operational performance while lowering the carbon footprint of construction. Water resilience is shaping sustainable building design in the UK, with drought prediction and reuse systems becoming part of life cycle thinking in construction and sustainable urban development.
The transition demands resource efficiency in construction and carbon neutral construction models that directly address the environmental impact of construction. Developers and contractors must commit to building lifecycle performance monitoring, circular construction strategies and sustainable material specification aligned with BREEAM v7 and similar frameworks. Environmental sustainability in construction now depends on design teams treating embodied carbon and whole life carbon as defining metrics for low-impact construction and durable, eco-friendly assets.
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