President Donald Trump proposed a total of $1.1 trillion budget for 2018. Alarmingly, he is also set to reveal his plans to dismantle the core of Barack Obama's climate change programs. Trump wants to end "stupid" things about global warming research.
Mick Mulvaney, the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that the message of the President about global warming is fairly straightforward. "We're not spending money on that anymore," he noted. For one thing, Trump may order Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to withdraw and rewrite some Obama-era rules like the Clean Power Plan.
If it pushes through, the mining companies and the polluting coal-fired power plants can freely operate once again. Meanwhile, the White House is allegedly planning to bail out from the 2015 Paris Agreement too. Although it is not yet sure, the current administration is certain that they cannot meet the emissions reduction goals set by Obama.
Nevertheless, per the New York Times, political experts still believe that quickly changing "substantive element" of Obama's global warming rules will not be that easy. They noted that the controversial process has to go through steep legal challenges. Apparently, it could take "many years" and may end in the Supreme Court.
Effects to foreign researchers
The Guardian reported that some of the most affected foreign research projects are those found in the United Kingdom (UK). British scholars highly rely on American projects to understand climate change. Professor Joanna Haigh, co-director of the Grantham Institute in London, confirmed that they "rely on American satellite data."
Well, the Chinese and Indian satellite services may soon step in. Additionally, scientists in the UK described the direction that Trump is taking right now as "disastrous". Do note that the immigration ban is already harming their collaboration with researchers in the United States. For the record, the incumbent US President did not believe global warming claims right from the start.
