Climate Researchers Wait for the Ax to Fall
Climate experts whose research is funded by federal grants hide, whisper and wait for their jobs to disappear
The Trump administration has slashed jobs and funding at the National Institutes of Health.
Mark Wilson/Newsmakers/Getty Images
CLIMATEWIRE | The National Institutes of Health has canceled grants for research on diversity, Covid-19 and vaccines. Climate scientists are hoping their work won’t be next — but fear it could be.
“We are holding our breaths because we know we are on their list of targets,” said Marsha Wills-Karp, chair of the Johns Hopkins University Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. “It feels like it’s been slash and burn. We are hopeful they won’t get to climate, but we know it’s not likely.”
Researchers in her department have received NIH grants to study the effects of wildfire air pollution on preterm birth rates and how hotter weather is affecting the health of babies at birth, measured by their weight and potential complications. They’re also studying how climate change is affecting nutrition.
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At the University of Washington, Kristie Ebi is fearful that NIH could cut grants that fund studies about which populations are more vulnerable to extreme heat — a project that the team is planning to expand to include the dangers of wildfire smoke.
“We’re working to provide information that departments of health, communities and individuals can use,” Ebi said. “The more you know, the more of those lives you can save.”
None of those programs haven’t been cut yet. But there’s reason to think they could be, and soon.
Earlier this week, ProPublica reported on an internal NIH memo that outlined how the agency will no longer fund research on the health effects of climate change. It followed a story in Mother Jones showing that NIH had ended three climate-related programs, including the Climate Change and Health Initiative. The program was created in 2022 and has had annual congressional appropriations of $40 million, according to a December NIH report that was taken offline by the agency earlier this year.
“HHS is taking action to terminate research funding that is not aligned with NIH and HHS priorities,” said Emily Hilliard, a department spokesperson.
“As we begin to Make America Healthy Again, it’s important to prioritize research that directly affects the health of Americans,” she added. “We will leave no stone unturned in identifying the root cause of the chronic disease epidemic as part of our mission to Make America Healthy Again.”
She did not respond to questions about whether HHS believes that research into the health effects of heat and other types of extreme weather are aligned with agency priorities or whether HHS believes that heat waves affect the health of Americans. NIH did not respond to a request for comment.
Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency within HHS. Heat caused or contributed to at least 2,300 deaths in 2023, CDC records show.
In addition to turbocharging temperatures, climate change can affect people’s health by increasing the prevalence of vector-borne diseases and the number of wildfires, whose smoke has been shown to increase asthma and cause cardiovascular problems.
Those connections have long been studied with funding from the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences. Then in 2022, NIH broadened the scope of federal funding for climate health research, directing each of the agency’s 26 centers and institutes to study the dangers of climate change. At the time, the agency said “a mounting number of assessments and reports provide undeniable evidence that climate change is resulting in … direct and indirect consequences for human health and well-being.”
Most of the climate researchers contacted by POLITICO’s E&E News declined to talk publicly about their funding, citing concerns about their grants being rescinded if they spoke to the media.
One researcher who was awarded federal funding said some experts in the climate and health field are pausing work related to their grants, like hiring.
Others have turned down speaking requests because they’re concerned about attracting attention from the Trump administration. Their work often focuses on how extreme weather has disproportional effects on the health of communities of color, according to several researchers who were granted anonymity for fear of retribution. One said that they declined a speaking invitation to avoid “accidentally us[ing] language we are not supposed to and then be told our language is not compliant with various executive orders” on diversity and equality.
“We’ve been told we need to comply with those executive orders as federal grantees, but it’s hard to do if you are funded for something that the name is something you are not allowed to say,” the researcher said. “No one wants to do a social media post or a webinar or an event that might get them in trouble.”
An annual conference hosted by NIH, Boston University and the Harvard School of Public Health was postponed earlier this month.
Linda Birnbaum, who led the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences until 2017, said that during the first Trump administration, researchers were able to circumvent directives by wording grant applications as “climate and health” rather than “climate change.”
“It worked then. I don’t think that will work anymore,” she said.
Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.