Spotlight: Prospects of U.S. greenhouse gas emission reduction uncertain under Trump administration

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who called climate change a "hoax," may dramatically alter the path set by the Obama administration on reductions of emission, leaving the fate of climate-change research uncertain.

Global warming has caused sea levels to increase by 3.2 millimeters per year, threatening infrastructure and ecosystems, according to a new report published in Science, which called for more research into adaptations to sea-level increases, and for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

POSSIBLE WITHDRAWAL FROM PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT

Trump has been a long-term skeptic of climate change. During his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, which was inked in December, 2015 and came into force last week. The agreement, signed by more than 180 countries, aimed to hold increases in the global average temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, by pledging to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Responding to concerns that Trump may "cancel" the Paris Agreement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said on Monday the deal was a result of concerted efforts of all parties, including China and the United States.

China is willing to strengthen cooperation with the United States and other countries on climate change and promote green, low-carbon and sustainable development around the globe, the spokesperson added.

On Sept. 3, 2016, during the G20 summit in China's Hangzhou City, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, handed over the necessary instruments to join the Paris Agreement to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, marking a milestone in the cooperation between the two largest economies in the world.

Last week, Xi congratulated Trump on becoming president-elect of the United States, and said he hoped they could work together to boost China-U.S. relations so as to benefit the world.

RESHAPING DOMESTIC EMISSION AND ENERGY POLICIES

A report from Scientific American notes that Trump has selected Myron Ebell, the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), to lead his transition team for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which develops and enforces emission regulations.

Ebell, a high-profile skeptic of climate change, chairs the Coller Heads Coalition, which leads non-profit groups that "question global warming alarmism and oppose energy rationing policies," according to Ebell's page on the CEI website.

His participation in the EPA transition signals that the Trump team is looking to drastically reshape the climate policies the EPA has pursued under the Obama administration. Local media noted that Ebell suits Trump's environmental ideals; he has been a firm disbeliever of the Paris Agreement, even urging the Senate to vote against it.

Other skeptics include U.S. Republican energy lobbyist Mike McKenna and former Interior Department solicitor David Bernhardt, chosen by Trump to play leadership roles in the Energy Department and Interior Department teams, according to the report from Scientific American.

FATE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

In the United States, scientific research on climate change is mainly funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Department of Energy (DOE), Huang Xianglei, an associate professor from the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences at the University of Michigan, told Xinhua.

All these federal agencies support fundamental research on the physical scientific basis of climate change, but with different emphases. For example, NOAA focuses more on ocean climates, while NASA mainly supports spaceborne observations. The holy grail of this research is to find so-called "climate sensitivity," namely the increase in the average global temperature as the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide doubles.

"Different computer models have produced values between 1.5 and 4 degrees, but shrinking this uncertainty further has proven very difficult," said Huang.

The NSF and DOE also fund research on adaptations to climate change and mitigating its damage.

The budgets of NASA, NSF, NOAA and DOE are set by Congress, while individual program officers within these agencies decide how funds are divided based on peer reviews from within the scientific community. This means that while the new president may take a personal stance against climate change, "it is too early to tell how the new administration would and could steer the direction of climate-change research," Huang said. Endi