"Faced with a lawsuit, the administration of US President Donald Trump has disbanded a panel of five well-known critics of climate science who issued a controversial draft report questioning the evidence underlying global warming. US energy secretary Chris Wright asserted that the group had accomplished its goal in publishing the first draft, which the Department of Energy (DoE) has declined to withdraw. Two of the panel's members told Nature they plan to continue the work independently."
"The dissolution of the panel could undermine the draft report as well as its potential use in regulatory decisions. In particular, the document serves as the scientific basis of the Trump administration's efforts to repeal a landmark 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. A repeal of the finding would prevent the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gases, now and potentially into the future."
""The optics are bad," says Adam Orford, a legal scholar at Fordham University in New York City. "If you are going to base climate policy on something, shouldn't it be a little bit more credible than a draft report from a committee that was disbanded?" Contentious findings The draft report, which was released in July, concluded that global warming is "less damaging economically than commonly believed"."
President Trump's administration dissolved a five-member panel of climate skeptics amid a lawsuit, after the panel published a contentious draft questioning evidence for global warming. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the panel had met its goal by publishing the draft, which the Department of Energy has not withdrawn. Two panel members plan to continue the work independently. The panel's dissolution could weaken the draft's credibility and its use in regulatory decisions, including efforts to repeal a 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and to limit the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases. The draft claims global warming is less economically damaging than commonly believed and was authored by researchers who challenge climate consensus.
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