PLEA Network

10 May 2018, BBC, Trump White House axes NASA research into greenhouse gas cuts. President Donald Trump’s administration has ended US space agency Nasa’s monitoring system into greenhouse gases, a US journal has revealed. The Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), a $10m (£7m)-a-year project which remotely tracks the world’s flow of carbon dioxide, is to lose funding. Science magazine reports that its loss jeopardises the ability to measure national emission cuts – as agreed to by nations in the Paris climate deal. The US plans to withdraw from the deal. However, until a pullout is formalised in 2020, the US continues to be part of the international climate accord. US officials are currently in Germany as part of talks to outline a detailed rule book for the 2015 Paris agreement. They are reportedly insisting on strong rules for reporting and monitoring greenhouse gas emissions. Mr Trump has repeatedly threatened Nasa’s earth science budget and other climate missions. In March, a spending deal signed in Congress omitted mention of CMS, effectively killing future US research into verifying greenhouse gas emission cuts. “If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement,” energy and environment professor Kelly Sims Gallagher told the journal. Making cheating easy Accurately measuring emissions of carbon dioxide has been one of the major challenges for UN negotiators since concerns over climate change first manifested in the 1990s. Right now most countries produce annual estimates based on working out how much fuel is used in transport, energy and industry. These are often wildly inaccurate, making cheating easy. Read more here