European governments are taking steps to break their dependence on critical scientific data the United States historically made freely available to the world, and are ramping up their own data collection systems to monitor climate change and weather extremes, according to Reuters interviews.
The effort – which has not been previously reported – marks the most concrete response from the European Union and other European governments so far to the U.S. government’s retreat from scientific research under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Since his return to the White House, Trump has initiated sweeping budget cuts to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies, dismantling programs conducting climate, weather, geospatial and health research, and taking some public databases offline.
As those cuts take effect, European officials have expressed increasing alarm that – without continued access to U.S.-supported weather and climate data – governments and businesses will face challenges in planning for extreme weather events and long-term infrastructure investment, according to Reuters interviews. In March, more than a dozen European countries urged the EU Commission to move fast to recruit American scientists who lose their jobs to those cuts.
Asked for comment on NOAA cuts and the EU’s moves to expand its own collection of scientific data, the White House Office of Management and Budget said Trump’s proposed cuts to the agency’s 2026 budget were aimed at programs that spread “fake Green New Scam ‘science,'” a reference to climate change research and policy.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. is funding real science again,” Rachel Cauley, an OMB spokesperson, said via email.
European officials told Reuters that – beyond the risk of losing access to data that is bedrock to the world’s understanding of climate change and marine systems – they were concerned by the general U.S. pullback from research.
“The current situation is much worse than we could have expected,” Sweden’s State Secretary for Education and Research Maria Nilsson, told Reuters. “My reaction is, quite frankly, shock.”
The Danish Meteorological Institute described the U.S. government data as “absolutely vital” – and said it relied on several data sets to measure including sea ice in the Arctic and sea surface temperatures. “This isn’t just a technical issue, reliable data underpins extreme weather warnings, climate projections, protecting communities and ultimately saves lives,” said Adrian Lema, director of the DMI’s National Center for Climate Research.
Reuters interviewed officials from eight European countries who said their governments were undertaking reviews of their reliance on U.S. marine, climate and weather data. Officials from seven countries – Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden – described joint efforts now in the early stages to safeguard key health and climate data and research programs.
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Source: Reuters – Kate Abnett, Valerie Volcovici and Sarah Marsh
Feature Photo Source: https://www.euronews.com
