National Climate Assessment report on the impacts of climate change
The United States is experiencing the impacts of climate change in every region, from fires in the west to hurricane-related flooding in the east. The National Climate Assessment (NCA) coordinates and integrates federal research on changes in the global environment and their implications for society.
Challenge
As mandated by Congress, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) develops and coordinates “a comprehensive and integrated United States research program which will assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.”
Comprising 13 federal agencies, USGCRP produces a comprehensive and authoritative report on climate change and its impacts on the nation every four years.
Solution
ICF helps the USGCRP manage the coordination between federal agencies, receive input from its Federal Advisory Committee, and coordinate more than a thousand experts, authors, and reviewers who contribute to the report. These types of collaboration don't happen naturally. The staff of the USGCRP, supported by ICF, are the glue that holds the process together. Our team of resilience, adaptation, and climate science experts serves as the navigation system, working in the background to help operationalize the work of the USGCRP.
A crucial piece of the NCA process is providing multiple opportunities for public input and feedback on the draft report. We collaborate with federal leads on the benefits and attributes of various choices. Once they've set their final priorities, we craft the public engagement process and implement the strategy to achieve their goals.
WATCH NOW: How climate change is impacting the United States
Results
In late November 2022, the draft of the fifth NCA—a consensus-based view of a thousand experts, authors, and reviewers—was released to public comment and peer review.
The draft report represents advances in scientific and technical knowledge, including: increased documentation of communities implementing proven climate solutions to reduce the worst harms from climate change; greater understanding of how people are experiencing climate change, including those communities experiencing disproportionate impacts or where climate change is exacerbating existing inequities; improved understanding of Earth system processes like how sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gas concentrations or how climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more severe.