Major United Nations Report Faces Budget Woes Amid Trump’s Pull Back

Without US backing and more money being spent than brought in, the IPCC’s trust fund could run out by 2028.Author of the article:You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.(Bloomberg) — The impacts of the Trump administration’s move to pull the US out of a major United Nations climate report became clear at a meeting late last month in Bangkok.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.With the US absent, dozens of governments discussed the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s next series of influential reports. The meeting previewed some of the challenges the group faces without substantial US involvement, notably a budget shortfall. But it also showed where other countries can play bigger roles, including European nations and China.The US has long been the world’s scientific powerhouse. But the Trump administration has shuttered key programs and slashed funding. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump also pulled the US out of dozens of international agreements and groups, including the IPCC. Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againInterested in more newsletters? Browse here.On the IPCC’s sixth and most recent assessment — published in stages between 2021 and 2023 — the US led all countries with 74 researchers. That’s double China’s representation, which tied for fourth with Australia. More than 70 US scientists are working on the next report, largely through a network organized by the nonprofit American Geophysical Union, which stepped in after the government withdrew its support.Other nations have been working to increase their scientific capacity, though.

The European Union is investing $100 million this decade in its Horizon Europe program to boost research and innovation, with about 15% of that funding projects in climate, energy and mobility. China has plowed even more money into its scientific enterprise, and the investments are starting to pay off. For the seventh set of IPCC reports, more than half of the contributing scientists come from developing countries and new market economies. Within two years, China is expected to pull ahead of the US in publicly funded research, according to the Frontiers in Science and Innovation Policy program at the University of California at San Diego. While the group does not separate climate-related funding data, it’s an area where Beijing has made gains. “China’s academic input has really grown massively. They have published some fantastic work in the past few years” and the volume is growing, said Corinne Le Quéré, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia, who has worked on previous IPCC reports.But there are areas where US science — and particularly data — could be harder to replace. The Trump administration’s shutter of the US Agency for International Development, for example, effectively defunded the Emergency Events Database (known as EM-DAT), a rigorously maintained “vital global public resource” ever more necessary as extreme weather worsens, according to an open letter signed by hundreds of researchers calling for the dataset to continue. The project has carried on but is rethinking its operations and calling for ideas to maintain the database after USAID support vanished.“If EM-DAT were to cease operations, the consequences would not be abstract; they would be practical, immediate and damaging,” according to an open letter signed by hundreds of researchers around the world.US financial support for the IPCC may also be a challenge to replace. The group is facing an increasingly bleak situation with its major funder missing. Without US backing and more money being spent than brought in, the group’s trust fund could run out by 2028. The IPCC brought in $4.8 million last year from member contributions while spending $8.7 million. Meanwhile, its trust fund stood at $18.5 million at the start of this year. The US has contributed 27% of the IPCC’s trust fund historically, though that percentage has declined over time. It made no contribution in 2025, amid Trump’s pullback from the Paris Agreement and existing US climate policies.“Member governments must address an increasingly difficult financial situation,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, one of the IPCC’s sponsoring agencies, in a speech opening the Bangkok talks. All of this puts the IPCC in a challenging position as it enters a critical phase to pull together its comprehensive reports by 2028.“Obviously, it’s disappointing if the richness of the underlying scientific literature is diminished,” Jim Skea, an expert in energy, climate and technology who chairs the IPCC, told Bloomberg recently. “But as we’ve seen already in this cycle, you know, [the] IPCC is resilient.”—With assistance from Akshat Rathi and Olivia Rudgard.Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.