Factcheck: Trump’s Local weather Report Consists of Greater than 100 False or Deceptive Claims

Assist CleanTechnica’s work by a Substack subscription or on Stripe.

Final Up to date on: nineteenth August 2025, 12:02 am

By Ayesha Tandon, Leo Hickman, Cecilia Keating, and Robert McSweeney. Design by Tom Prater.

A “important evaluation” report commissioned by the Trump administration to justify a rollback of US local weather rules accommodates a minimum of 100 false or deceptive statements, in accordance with a Carbon Temporary factcheck involving dozens of main local weather scientists.

The 140-page report — “A important overview of impacts of greenhouse fuel emissions on the US local weather” — was revealed by the US Division of Vitality (DoE) on 23 July, simply days earlier than the federal government laid out plans to revoke a scientific discovering used because the authorized foundation for emissions regulation.

The chief abstract of the controversial report inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming could be much less damaging economically than generally believed”.

It additionally states misleadingly that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation insurance policies may show extra detrimental than helpful”.

Compiled in simply two months by 5 “impartial” researchers hand-selected by the climate-sceptic US secretary of power Chris Wright, the doc has sparked fierce criticism from local weather scientists, who’ve pointed to factual errors, misrepresentation of analysis, messy citations and the cherry-picking of information.

Specialists have additionally famous the authors’ monitor document of selling views at odds with the mainstream understanding of local weather science.

Wright’s division claims the report — which is at present open to public remark as a part of a 30-day overview — underwent an “inner peer-review interval amongst [the] DoE’s scientific analysis neighborhood”.

The report is designed to supply a scientific underpinning to at least one flank of the Trump administration’s plans to rescind a discovering that serves because the authorized prerequisite for federal emissions regulation. (The second flank is about authorized authority to manage emissions.)

The “endangerment discovering” — enacted by the Obama administration in 2009 — states that six greenhouse gases are contributing to the net-negative impacts of local weather change and, thus, put the general public in peril.

In a press launch on 29 July, the US Environmental Safety Company stated “up to date research and data” set out within the new report would “problem the assumptions” of the 2009 discovering.

Carbon Temporary requested a variety of local weather scientists, together with these cited within the “important overview” itself, to factcheck the report’s varied claims and statements.

Flaws visualised

The responses might be explored beneath, with false statements highlighted in purple and deceptive statements shaded in orange. Any areas that stay uncoloured symbolize elements of the report that both have been acknowledged as correct by a cited writer, or haven’t acquired any remark from invited specialists.

The dropdown menu can be utilized to navigate to particular sections of the report.

Carbon Temporary’s evaluation additionally finds that, of the 350 references included within the report, nearly 10% is figure by the report’s personal authors.

Amid the Trump administration’s assaults on science, some contributors have requested to be anonymised. The responses from scientists have been calmly edited for readability and elegance.

Carbon Temporary’s methodology and a glossary of key phrases utilized by factchecking contributors might be discovered in direction of the top of the article.

The DoE had not responded to Carbon Temporary’s request for remark on the time of going to press.

Article from Carbon Temporary. Learn the complete report right here.