WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A US journal has revealed that the Trump administration has abruptly ended an ambitious NASA program that tracks carbon and methane, key greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
The journal, Science, said in its report Friday that the administration of President Donald Trump has waged a broad attack on climate science conducted by NASA, including proposals to cut the budget of earth science research and kill off the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 mission.
While Congress fended off these attacks, NASA has moved ahead with plans to end the Carbon Monitoring System, a $10-million-a-year research line.
The NASA program had helped stitch together observations of sources and sinks of methane and carbon dioxide into high-resolution models of the planet's flows of carbon.
The program, launched in 2010, has developed tools to improve estimates of carbon stocks in forests, especially, from Alaska to Indonesia.
Ending it will complicate future efforts to monitor and verify national emission cuts stemming from the Paris climate deal, researchers say.
In June last year, President Donald Trump decided to pull the United States out of the Paris climate pact, signed by his predecessor Barack Obama.
The agreement was unfair to the world's largest economy, according to him. Trump said he was prepared to negotiate a new agreement or re-enter the accord on improved terms, but the UN made it clear that the Paris Climate Agreement is a historic treaty signed by over 190 nations and cannot be renegotiated on the request of a single nation.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX