Climate policy and rhetoric in Washington: a symbolic threat to early-stage climate research and development

Impact Insights
Aug 25, 2017 · 9 min read

Public and science groups have been voicing concern over the potential ramifications of large federal budget cuts to science with the release of Trump’s 2018 budget¹. The proposed budget slashes funding to many climate programs, putting into action many of the anti-climate sentiments displayed during Trump’s campaign. While federal financial support for climate programs is clearly important, I instead consider the effect of this administration’s climate policy and rhetoric on the climate science workforce. The career decisions of a generation of trained, early-career climate scientists have yet to be seen. The potential loss of climate science talent during a critical time of climate policy could lead to a long lasting decline in basic climate research, early-stage cleantech and cleantech-focused venture capital. In an economy where knowledgeable scientific talent can transfer between sectors, we need to consider how an unstable job market and perceived lack of impact portrayed by the current administration could lead to a significant drop in trained climate scientists.


The benefits of federal scientific funding have been acknowledged since 1945, as evidenced in a report from Vannevar Bush to President Roosevelt on the benefits of scientific knowledge and the need to prioritize funding of young scientific talent². This includes the importance of funding basic research, which is not performed with a specific commercial purpose in mind and has the potential for spillover effects in industry and associated economic benefits. More recently, the Congressional Budget Office have determined that the economic returns associated with basic research exceed the returns associated with putting those funds to other uses, resulting in basic research funding increasing dramatically from the 1950s to 2004³.

The need for federal funding of basic research is perhaps not more evident in climate research, where research products have largely been unable to generate notable financial returns on investment, but instead provide a distinct social return. President Trump’s proposed budget cuts in sustainability-related technology (cleantech)¹ have the potential to generate large changes in this research area in the near and distant future. Many people are considering these budget cuts with respect to the ramifications of reduced funding for science⁴ ⁵, however the likelihood that this budget will get past the Senate floor unchanged is not likely⁷. What is potentially much more dangerous is the anti-climate science rhetoric emanating from Washington DC after an administration fully supporting the development of a low carbon economy. To climate research community, this communicates scary job market instability and an apparent lack of impact of their research. These factors could disincentivize an entire generation of climate scientists to transition to other industries. Rather than thinking of static, published research as the main product of academic institutions, we should instead consider the trajectory of the trained workforce that they generate. Socially responsible outlets such as basic climate research, early-stage cleantech and cleantech-focused venture capital have the potential to lose critical talent in the coming years unless we address their concerns with stable, research-informed climate policy.

Implications for academia

Federally-funded data sources consider the employment trajectory of trained scientists in the workforce, including UMETRICS, the NSF Science and Engineering Doctorates Survey and the NSF Survey of Doctorate Recipients. They find the majority of NSF funding goes to students and post-docs, rather than faculty who are generally supported by teaching⁷. These trends demonstrate that government support is crucial for scientists in the training pipeline and not for those who are already established. This suggests that early-career scientists are particularly vulnerable to federal budget cuts in science. The availability and search for funding is generally a limiting factor in scientific research, which usually leads to the divergence of academic and industry focused researchers⁴ ⁸. However, STEM PhD recipients do not have issues finding promising job prospects in large, high-wage positions⁹. Skilled scientific researchers participate in what can be considered a knowledge economy¹⁰, where scientific talent and knowledge can be transferred between sectors. This suggests that when we consider a research area that is politically unstable, we need to examine the potential for researchers to move into a different field after graduating. This would make analysis of the impact of federal climate funding much more complicated by necessitating the consideration of the longevity of the trained workforce, rather than the immediately produced research products. This is a testable hypothesis, with scary consequences for climate research. When solely considering research products, research productivity should be directly correlated with the rise and fall of funding due to the current administration. However, when considering the trained workforce as the product of federal climate funding, research productivity would decrease with large fluctuations in funding, which is similar to what we are seeing now.

Of immediate relevance is the career decisions of climate scientists and how they are affected by climate policy, rhetoric and a perceived instability in the job market. This realization has occurred for early-state researchers in the recent transition from Obama’s administration supporting climate research to Trump’s immediate anti-climate action. Section 5 of Trump’s Executive Order on Energy and Climate¹¹ demonstrates the fluidity of climate policy and apparent futility of climate research. In Section 5a of the Executive Order the President cites the use of the “best available science” to inform the social cost of carbon, but proceeds in Section 5b to withdraw technical reports due to their conflict with the current governmental policy. To many scientists these statements are dichotomous, since the best available science should include all potential sources, not just those that support the current administration. This suggests that in highly politicized research areas, the connection between basic research and policy lacks a sense of logic for the research community. This also acts in the opposite direction as well with an uptake in climate science during Obama’s pro-STEM and climate administration. This disregard for research poses the question of how much climate research actually making it through the filter of policy and public perception and what proportion of climate scientists are motivated by social impact. These thought have made climate scientists I know, who began this career path with environmental sustainability in mind, choosing to transition their skill set to data science, the oil and gas industry or investment companies. Perhaps some continue to make a positive social impact by pursuing sustainability-focused industry, however I claim that there is also evidence that early-stage cleantech business have similar issues associated with fluctuations in federal funding.

Implications for industry

A growing area of research with direct social impact is sustainability-related technology (cleantech), which could draw skilled climate scientists away from academia. The development and and deployment of clean energy technologies is required to meet the 2 degree benchmark cited in the Paris Agreement. However the issues facing this industry are many, since early-stage clean energy technology provides a risky and low return on investment. Instead, large-scale, late-stage companies thrive since the prospects for investment and growth are good. This means that early-stage funding has historically been provided federally, while late-stage companies have garnered investments from the private sector. The government is also likely to invest in low financial return companies that have the opportunity to provide large social benefits. A reduction in federal funding could limit young entrepreneurs interest in pursuing cleantech businesses. To address this, Obama took large steps to build cleantech R&D as part of Mission Innovation where 22 countries and the European Union aim to double investment in clean energy research over five years¹². Obama’s budget proposal to advance Mission Innovation¹² creates a international, collaborative environment to enhance cleantech productivity. The Obama administration also developed programs to support early-stage cleantech such as ARPA-E, DoE LGP and the Clean Energy Investment Initiative¹³. In contrast, Trump’s proposed budget slashes many of the programs (ARPA-E and DoE LGP) that fund early-stage cleantech¹. These programs make national laboratory initiative programs possible, which take a “technol0gy-to-market” approach, such as Cyclotron Road at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Innovation Crossroads at Oak Ridge National Lab. President Trump’s exit from the Paris agreement could reduce international investments in these sectors and breakdown of Mission Innovation.

On the private sector side, climate related VC backing has dropped since 2011¹⁴ ¹⁵ ¹⁶. VC investments are biased towards late-stage companies¹⁴, while traditionally the government has provided early-stage investments in cleantech. Early-stage investing is necessary to drive new technologies to market, but the track record of many of these early-stage climate companies have been risky and may not return on investment. The $25 billion invested in cleantech between 2006 and 2011 lost investors half of their money¹⁴ ¹⁷ due to the funding of novel companies that never achieved manufacturing scale. Perhaps this is due to the fact that many VCs jumped into this sector with little knowledge of the technology and hopes for quick profits due to the public interest. Maybe the solution is VC firms like Village Capital, which chose funding based on the cohort of experts voting on which technologies deserve money and leaving the choices out of the hands of VCs who have yet to gain an intuition in this sector. Or this might be a great opportunity for young experts in academia to use their knowledge of this sector to push investments that are likely to do the most good and be profitable. This unwillingness to invest in cleantech from a institutional level inhibits VCs from gaining sector expertise and incentivizes them to consider other industries. This is seemingly parallel to what is occurring in academia, where early-stage talent is pushed towards other sectors due to instability in this market. What has yet to be seen is the potential of a tipping point where sustainability becomes not only economical, but generates revenue. Cleantech has yet to be seen from the private sector for its social and economic benefits and traditionally federal funding has helped push early-stage technology to market. These recent cuts in the federal budget could severely wound early-stage cleantech talent in the United States, with potentially long-lasting consequences.

Conclusions

In a knowledge economy where scientific talent can transfer between sectors, we need to consider not only the production of research, but also the generation of a skilled scientific workforce. In the case of high politicized research, the connection between scientific products and policy can be tenuous and in some instances this can lead to the migration of a generation of scientific talent to other sectors and a long-lasting effect on the scientific landscape. When we consider this effect applied to climate science and the current administration, we have the possibility of losing skilled researchers. The same is true of the cleantech industry where early-stage businesses require funding to move into the market. Without stable federal funding, the responsibility rests on the private sector where improvements need to be made in early-stage investment strategies. Overall, early-stage climate science is in a susceptible state, but time will tell how this community reacts to these abrupt changes in Washington.


¹ Office of Management and Budget. Budget of the U.S. Government: A New Foundation For American Greatness, Fiscal Year 2018. United States Government Printing Office, May 2017.

² Bush, Vannevar. Science The Endless Frontier: A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, July 1945. United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1945.

³ Congressional Budget Office, Congress of the United States. Federal Support for Research and Development. June 2007.

⁴ Eastlack, S. How Scarce Funding Shapes Young Scientists. PLOS Blogs, March 2017.

⁵ Weinberg, B.A. Who feels the pain of science research budget cuts? The Conversation, March 2017.

⁶ Everett, B., Bresnahan, J. and Ferris, S. Congress strikes budget deal that shortchanges Trump. POLITICO, April 2017.

⁷ Weinberg, B.A., Owen-Smith, J., Rosen, R.F., Schwarz, L., Allen, B.M., Weiss, R.E. and Lane, J. Science funding and short-term economic activity. Science, 344(6179), pp.41–43, 2014.

⁸ Daniels, R. A generation at risk: Young investigators and the future of the biomedical work- force. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(2), pp.313–318, January 2015.

⁹ Zolas, N., Goldschlag, N., Jarmin, R., Stephan, P., Owen-Smith, J., Rosen, R.F., Allen, B.M., Weinberg, B.A. and Lane, J.I. Wrapping it up in a person: Examining employment and earnings outcomes for Ph.D. recipients. Science, 350(6266), pp.1367–1371, 2015.

¹⁰ Powell, W. W. and Snellman K. The Knowledge Economy. Annual Reviews of Sociology, 30, pp.199–220, 2004.

¹¹ Office of the Press Secretary, The White House. Presidential Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. United States Government Printing Office, March 2017.

¹² Office of the Press Secretary, The White House. The President’s Climate Action Plan. United States Government Printing Office, February 2016.

¹³ Executive Office of the President, The White House. FACT SHEET: President’s Budget Proposal to Advance Mission Innovation. United States Government Printing Office, June 2013.

¹⁴ Saha, D. and Muro, M. Cleantech venture capital: Continued declines and narrow geography limit prospects. Brookings, May 2017.

¹⁵ Carey, B., Haskins, M., Thorson, T. and Gerstel, D. Cleantech MoneyTreeTM Report: Q1 2015. PricewaterhouseCoopers Cleantech Practice Reports, May 2015.

¹⁶ Frick, W. Does Silicon Valley Still Care About Climate Change? Harvard Business Review, May 2017.

¹⁷ Gaddy, B., Sivaram, V. and O’Sullivan F. Venture Capital and Cleantech: The Wrong Model for Clean Energy Innovation. An MIT Energy Initiative Working Paper, July 2016.

¹⁸ Wesoff, E. Cleantech Venture Capital: Why Are These Investors Smiling? Greentech Media, January 2015.

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Impact Insights

Written by

Data-driven climate scientist with recent interest in the world of impact investing. This is a space to record my often-naive and rapidly-evolving thoughts.

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