A new federal report says U.S. efforts to address climate change have expanded but not enough to stave off substantial damage to the economy, environment and human health.
The Fourth National Climate Assessment is the work of more than 300 experts including those with government agencies, national laboratories, universities and indigenous communities.
The report says climate change will harm infrastructure and property and impede economic growth without regional planning and a substantial global effort to curb emissions.
“I don’t believe it,” President Donald Trump said Monday, of the report issued by his own administration. Trump long has openly doubted climate change, describing it in 2012 as a “hoax.”
The U.S. Global Change Research Program, mandated by Congress to coordinate research on climate change, supervised the report, which was released quietly on Black Friday.
In the Southeast 61 percent of major cities already are experiencing worsening heat waves, the highest percentage of any region in the nation, according to the report.
