John Podesta has been making the rounds in Europe to warn the European Union that U.S. climate data needs protection from the Trump administration.
The former Hillary Clinton campaign manager was in Brussels last week to address the European Parliament on what he described as the necessity to combat the current administration’s open “hostility” to climate science.
Podesta explained in a Guardian op-ed that he spoke to parliamentarians about the “unprecedented threats facing the global understanding of climate change as a result of the Trump administration’s hostility to climate science, and [discussed] what European countries can and should do in response.”
Scientific organizations and environmental groups strongly protested the Trump administration’s early actions of removing climate change information from websites in the first year of Trump’s presidency. Last Earth Day, critics even staged a national protest of Trump’s actions. Called the March for Science, it was billed as promoting the role of science in policymaking.
Trump appointees have defended their actions by noting that programs to monitor the climate have stayed intact, like NASA’s Earth observation satellites. But Podesta and others say it is congressional action to preserve funding for the programs that has helped those programs stay afloat, not the Trump administration. In fact, the administration has sought to defund programs related to studying the effects of climate change for the past two years.
The administration has also opted not to publicize the climate data it has. A recent survey done by the watchdog group Environmental Data and Governance Initiative showed that in the first year of the administration, the Interior Department, Energy Department, and Environmental Protection Agency were scrubbed of public information on climate change.
Podesta is trying to gin up European Union support for combating the Trump administration’s energy agenda, which is oriented not toward addressing climate change but toward rolling back regulations that Podesta assisted the Obama administration in implementing. He wants both policymakers in the U.S and Europe to “stay alert” for signs of political interference when it comes to climate and energy data.
After speaking at a hearing on the European Commission’s new climate plan to be carbon neutral by 2050, Podesta was off to Norway to talk to Nils Rokke, the head of EU’s leading energy research consortium, the European Energy Research Alliance.
The main point Podesta pressed during their chat, Rokke told the Washington Examiner, was the climate data and the programs the U.S. has to collect that data is being threatened by the current administration under its budget proposals.
“He was painting a very disturbing picture of what’s going on, you know, like burn the data,” Rokke said, noting a report by the liberal think tank Center for American Progress that Podesta founded.
The Washington-based think tank in June released a report called “Burning the Data,” which alleged that Trump and his political appointees have “attacked” federal programs that operate or fund climate and energy data and research.
Podesta used the report in Brussels to convey a sense of urgency in taking steps to counter the attack.
“If the Trump administration fails to fund the satellites, climate models, Arctic flights and other scientific investments needed to produce and interpret vital climate and energy data, other champions, including European agencies and governments, will need to step up to fill in any to fill in any data, monitoring and research gaps that could set back our understanding of climate change and its impacts,” Podesta wrote in his op-ed.
The Center of American Progress did not respond to repeated requests for it to comment on Podesta’s European tour, nor did it comment on how it is following up on its “Burning the Data” report in Washington.
Podesta founded the think tank and previously served as its CEO, but no longer runs it on a day-to-day basis. He serves an advisory role as a member of the board of directors.
Environmentalist say they will be urging the Democratic-controlled House next year to conduct oversight on the Trump administration’s treatment of the climate data and climate programs, and the need for those to be protected.
