RSG 3-D's non-combustible panel system offers a financially competitive alternative to conventional construction that delivers wildfire, earthquake, and hurricane resilience.
The federal government's retreat from climate adaptation has created a gap in data, funding, and coordination, but a new decentralized ecosystem of nonprofits, state governments, and coalitions is stepping up to fill the void and may prove more resilient to political disruption in the long run.
As federal disaster support shrinks, resilience districts offer local governments a promising new financing tool to fund climate adaptation on their own terms.
The federal government's retreat from climate adaptation has created a gap in data, funding, and coordination, but a new decentralized ecosystem of nonprofits, state governments, and coalitions is stepping up to fill the void and may prove more resilient to political disruption in the long run.
By Marissa Knodel, Independent Climate Adaptation Advocate/Scholar/Researcher
Climate scientists and researchers are working within a very different environment than they were even two years ago, and the big question they now need to answer is how to keep doing their work in the absence of federal support.
The Trump administration has cut funding for every area of science and medicine, suspended or cancelled grants for climate research, retired NOAA’s Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database, weakened climate regulations, gutted FEMA, and more. Without federal leadership, communities, businesses, and local governments are left increasingly blind to the climate risks they face and less equipped to prepare for them.
And yet, a new adaptation ecosystem is emerging to fill the void that is more decentralized, more collaborative, and more resilient to political disruption than the federal structures it is replacing. This piece examines the federal government's historical role in climate adaptation, the consequences of its retreat, and the organizations and leaders stepping up in response.
As the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) summarized in Adapting to Climate Change: A Call for Federal Leadership, the federal government has historically been a key player for climate adaptation for four primary reasons: “it owns and manages a significant number of holdings and natural resources; its programs, regulations, and guidelines affect the ability of others to adapt; it is an important provider of technical, fiscal, and other support; and it plays a crucial role in dealing with impacts that cross geographic or jurisdictional boundaries.”
Importantly and fundamentally, national leadership also sends a strong, visible signal to the public and builds nationwide awareness of the need for climate adaptation. As articulated in a National Academies of Science report, Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, the federal government is well positioned to support scientific research at large that improves our understanding of climate risks and how to manage them.
For example, the National Climate Assessment is a report mandated by Congress to be released at least every four years that analyzes the trends, impacts, and future projections of climate change on the U.S. Additionally, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, provides critical models and data to help communities predict and prepare for extreme weather.
But in the last year, the Trump administration dismissed more than 400 scientific experts and authors, halting the release of the next National Climate Assessment report, and announced intentions to close climate research programs at NCAR. The rollback of these programs creates a data gap and severs the connective tissue that has long linked scientific research to the policy decisions and community investments that keep Americans safe.
Reimagining the future of climate science and adaptation requires coordinated efforts across four spheres: protecting federal climate data, elevating state and local leadership, communicating the importance of scientific integrity, and building new networks for coordination and collaboration.
Independent coalitions are stepping up to preserve critical federal climate data.
Non-governmental agencies are stepping up to make sure disaster monitoring and research don't lapse with federal funding. A coalition of organizations, including the Public Environmental Data Partners, the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, the Open Environment Data Project, and Harvard’s Library Innovation Lab, has been working to download, store, and make publicly available over 311,000 datasets.
Climate Central launched a version of NOAA’s disaster database to track the nation’s costliest weather events, and Data Foundation’s Climate Data Collaborative established a non-partisan coalition of academic researchers, private sector innovators, non-governmental organizations, and former federal officials to monitor, report, and verify U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Between 2023 and 2025, Rebecca Lindsey edited the Climate.gov website, formerly a major repository for federal climate information. After she left her position in February 2025, she co-founded Climate.us, a platform dedicated to preserving the data housed on the government site: the most recent National Climate Assessment, a Global Climate Dashboard, an event tracker, the Climate Literacy Guide, and other educational resources. Lindsey has emphasized the importance of preserving data and scientists’ research at the federal level, so that critical climate knowledge isn't lost to political cycles and future administrations can build on, rather than rebuild, the scientific foundation that informs resilience planning.
The good news: Nearly all federal climate resources and datasets have been rescued in some form or another, preservation that has been undertaken by external, grassroots organizations.
State and local governments are filling the void with innovative climate resilience policies.
Annie Bennett, Associate Director of the Adaptation Program at the Georgetown Climate Center (GCC), has outlined how state and local governments can create adaptation policies that protect communities and provide services to people in need, and better facilitate adaptation policymaking and investment decisions. GCC tools like the Adaptation Clearinghouse, State Adaptation Progress Tracker, and toolkits help governments and partners understand different considerations and trade-offs when making adaptation decisions.
The GCC tracker highlights how some state governments are implementing innovative approaches to climate resilience governance through establishing Chief Resilience Officers (12 states), developing a statewide resilience plan (New York), funding a State Resilience Office (Maine), and advancing zoning, planning, and building rules to help communities address climate-driven hazards (New Jersey).
Building climate literacy is essential to keeping adaptation science credible and actionable.
Alison Smart, executive director of Probable Futures, has defined a “climate literate citizen” as “someone who understands how and why the physical climate is changing, weather, and how they intersect with modern civilization and what we care about.” Probable Futures does this by making educational material and research accessible, with the goal of integrating climate considerations into the decisions people make every day. This effort becomes even more critical as federal science communication diminishes.
A decentralized ecosystem demands new networks for coordination and knowledge-sharing.
In a more decentralized ecosystem, the U.S. needs tools and opportunities to connect, coordinate, share knowledge, and collaborate. The federal retreat has made cross-sector coordination not just useful but essential, a gap EcoAdapt was designed to fill.
The nonprofit brings together communities, institutions, and agencies working on climate adaptation through resources like the Climate Adaptation Knowledge Exchange, a registry of adaptation practitioners, and a wide array of adaptation portals and tools, giving practitioners a shared space to exchange knowledge and avoid reinventing the wheel. Its biennial National Adaptation Forum, the preeminent convening for adaptation professionals in the U.S., further underscores EcoAdapt's role as a connective force in the field.
In a landscape where federal guidance and resources are shrinking, this kind of infrastructure linking adaptation professionals across the country and keeping the field moving forward becomes the backbone of a resilient, decentralized ecosystem.
As we reimagine a new relationship and balance with the federal government, the stakeholders referenced here demonstrate that the work of climate adaptation can continue and even innovate outside of federal structures. But sustaining that momentum will require deliberate investment to keep climate science accessible, credible, and actionable for the communities that need it most.
That means:
For a deeper dive into how this new ecosystem is taking shape, including conversations with many of the leaders highlighted above, listen to Episode 241 of the America Adapts podcast, hosted by Doug Parsons.
Have thoughts to share on this piece, or want to add your voice to the conversation? Reach out!
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