· 2 min read
illuminem summarises for you the essential news of the day. Read the full piece on CNN or enjoy below:
🗞️ Driving the news: The Trump administration has announced the retirement of NOAA’s Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database, ending public access to a key federal resource that has tracked the cost of extreme weather in the U.S. since 1980
• The move is part of a broader rollback of climate-related programs, with NOAA citing workforce reductions and budget constraints as primary causes
🔭 The context: The database has been used for decades by researchers, policymakers, insurers, and the media to understand the economic impact of natural disasters, cataloging over 400 events costing at least $1 billion each and totaling nearly $3 trillion in losses
• Despite official claims that the database is not intended for climate attribution, many experts have relied on it to illustrate how climate change is intensifying weather-related damages
• The program’s discontinuation follows a series of cuts and restructuring at NOAA, including threats to shutter research labs and reduce public weather services
🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Ending this database obscures vital public insight into the financial toll of worsening climate impacts, making it harder to link rising disaster costs with human-caused climate change
• As extreme events grow more frequent and severe, data transparency is essential for shaping informed policy, insurance modeling, and infrastructure resilience
• Losing access to standardized, long-term records jeopardizes evidence-based climate adaptation planning
⏭️ What's next: Without NOAA’s centralized, publicly accessible record, institutions may turn to private data sources — many of which are proprietary and costly — or attempt to recreate analyses with limited data access
• Experts warn this will hamper regional and sectoral risk assessments
• NOAA faces a proposed 24% budget cut in FY2026, with further program closures under consideration, including the elimination of its climate research division
💬 One quote: “Without it, replicating or extending damage trend analyses...is nearly impossible without significant funding or institutional access to commercial catastrophe models.” — Jeremy Porter, Head of Climate Implications, First Street Foundation
📈 One stat: The U.S. averaged 24 billion-dollar disasters per year between 2019 and 2024—up from just 9 per year between 1980 and 2018
Click for more news covering the latest on climate change and public governance
