US President Donald Trump is an avowed climate science skeptic who during his second term has followed through on promises to slash funding for renewable energies like wind, and to promote oil and gas.

But the administration has also gutted agencies that produce climate information used by millions of Americans. In February, only weeks after taking office, around 800 people were dismissed from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which monitors ocean and climate conditions and issues weather forecasts and warnings via its National Weather Service.

The firings also impacted the agency's climate.gov website, the premier platform for climate information in the US that informs readers about extreme weather, sea level and temperature rise, and much else. It had around 15 million page views in 2024, noted the AFP news agency.

Due to Trump cuts, 'public lost access to a trusted source of climate information'

Trump administration-appointed officials at NOAA not only terminated climate.gov staff, they redirected the homepage to a site controlled by political appointees, noted Rebecca Lindsey, the former manager of climate.gov who was also sacked in February. 

"Our project was likely targeted because of its high visibility," she said.

The site became virtually obsolete after nearly all its remaining staff were fired in early June.

"There is no longer a team to keep the mission going," Lindsey said of a once-dynamic climate portal that was updated weekly and monthly with explanations about the latest impacts of climate change.

"The public has still lost access to a trusted source of timely climate information," she added.

US climate community resists shutdown with independent site

But Lindsey is now leading an effort to relaunch climate.gov independently under the climate.us URL.

"At a moment when critical climate information is being deleted or distorted, we are stepping up to rescue key climate resources … and to ensure the public has continued easy access to the facts," states the recently launched website.

The successor to climate.gov is purposely outside the federal government domain to keep it free from political interference, and thus to protect the integrity of its climate information.

The plan is not only to revive and migrate all the climate data removed from the climate.gov site, but to platform the likes of the National Climate Assessment, the US government's flagship report on climate change impacts, risks and responses before its team of scientists were fired. 

The dismantling of this key climate study was also part of the general defunding of "renewable energy and climate resilience projects" that were financed by Congress during the former Biden administration, Lindsey explained. In March, for example, some $20 billion (€18.3 billion) worth of clean power and climate grants issued by the former government were terminated.

Meanwhile, experts say the shuttering of climate.gov will limit preparedness for extreme weather events. 

"Restricting the visibility of climate data blinds the country to climate effects and makes it that much harder to prepare," wrote the US-based Center for Climate and Security in a blog post in June.

"Without preparation, communities and the nation at large will be forced to react and rebuild, which is far more expensive than working towards prevention," it added, noting that the global economic cost of rebuilding after climate disasters in 2024 was $320 billion (about €272 billion).

What information was actually purged from climate.gov? 

The effort to reestablish a trusted source of climate information comes after much was purged from climate.gov because it referenced so-called "diversity, equity and inclusion," or DEI — a policy that was labelled "immoral" and "illegal discrimination" under a Trump executive order in January.

"Anything that had to do with the importance of diversity and inclusion in science, anything to do with equity, justice or the disproportionate impacts of climate change on historically disadvantaged communities," was deleted from the climate.gov site, Lindsey told DW.

Information mentioning the "Gulf of Mexico" that wasn't updated to "Gulf of America" was also erased after Trump signed another executive order — "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness" — decreeing the name be changed in all federal agency documents.

These executive orders coincided with others related to climate and renewable energy: one paused offshore wind permits, while another promised to "unleash" high emission oil-, gas- and coal-fired electricity. Meanwhile, in the first weeks of the administration, any mentions of climate change were scrubbed from multiple federal agency websites, including the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Since it was not "technically possible" to remove all "forbidden" content from the voluminous climate.gov platform, Lindsey said whole sections were removed, including the latest version of the "Climate Literacy Guide," which was authored by the now-disbanded US Global Change Research Program. 

While much of climate.gov's original content remains online, Lindsey speculates that only information deemed "acceptable" — such as blogs about the polar vortex that do not directly relate to climate change science — will be migrated to a new online location before the rest of the site is potentially shut down.

Can climate experts go it alone? 

The first part of the plan for the nonprofit climate.us is to rebirth a complete version of climate.gov by restoring all censored content. 

Then, if it can acquire adequate funding, a new editorial and content team will continuously update the site with the latest climate data and information, including maps and graphics for reuse.

The platform has said it will counter the Trump administration's war on climate science through a collaboration between experts, educators, organizations, universities and civic leaders.

"They're hiding the truth. We're fighting back," runs the climate.us slogan.

But "public donations" — which have already hit $85,000 — will be the key for the site to become fully functioning, said Lindsey. 

"So many people are excited about this effort, so many people say it is giving them hope. And that gives me hope."

Edited by: Tamsin Walker