Can U.S. climate science survive under Trump?

Yesterday, the U.S. Congress approved President Donald Trump's so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill'. This controversial federal budget is set to defund a huge proportion of the nation's climate and environmental science - what will the impacts be for America, and for global efforts against the climate crisis?

Bertie spoke to John Holdren, who served as President Barack Obama's Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2009-2017, becoming the longest-serving Science Advisor to the President in U.S. history. He is now a Research Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. 

Further reading: 

• ‘How the G.O.P. Bill Will Reshape America’s Energy Landscape’, The New York Times, 3/7/25 
• ‘Key climate change reports removed from US government websites’, The Guardian, 1/7/25 
• ‘Turmoil at US science academy as Trump cuts force layoffs’, Nature, 1/7/25 
• ‘Here Is All the Science at Risk in Trump’s Clash With Harvard’, The New York Times, 22/6/25 
• ‘Time for Congress to save American science … and the nation’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 6/6/25 
• ‘The Trump administration has shut down more than 100 climate studies’, MIT Technology Review, 2/6/25 
• ‘The U.S. Under Trump: Alone in Its Climate Denial’, The New York Times, 19/5/25 
• ‘The Future of the U S Climate and Environmental Science Funding’, The Salata Institute, 14/5/25 [video] 

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