Europe Breaking Its Reliance on Critical US Scientific Data

Govts Taking Steps as Trump's Budget Cuts Hit Climate and Weather Research Initiatives

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BRUSSELS — European governments are taking steps to break their dependence on critical scientific data the US historically made freely available to the world, and are ramping up their 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 US government's retreat from scientific research under President Donald Trump's administration.

Since his return to the White House, Mr. Trump has initiated sweeping budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies, dismantling programmes 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 US-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 European Commission (EC) 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 Mr. Trump's proposed cuts to the agency's 2026 budget were aimed at programmes that spread "fake Green New Scam 'science'" — a reference to climate change research and policy.