The world’s most comprehensive disaster database – relied on by thousands of climate scientists and policymakers – is at risk of closing as a result of cuts to US foreign aid by the Trump administration.
The “emergency events” database (EM-DAT) has for 30 years provided free-to-use information on the size and impact of extreme weather events and other disasters around the world.
Its data underpins a vast range of scientific research, government policymaking, humanitarian response efforts and environmental investigations.
However, Trump’s dismantling of the federal Agency for International Development (USAid) – which provided 90% of the funding for EM-DAT – has left the future of the database in jeopardy, scientists tell Carbon Brief.
An open letter coordinated by climate scientists and signed by more than 4,000 academics and students is calling on governments, multilateral development banks and philanthropy to step in to stop the database from closing.
‘World’s memory of disasters’
For the past three decades, a small team of researchers at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at the University of Louvain in Belgium have maintained EM-DAT.
It is the world’s most comprehensive database of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, floods and tropical storms, along with other disasters. It offers information such as the timing and length of an event, how many people were killed or displaced and the economic cost.
Since 1988, this continuous record has been free to use and independently verified by the researchers at CRED.
When considered in its entirety, the database provides more than just a list of disasters – it acts as a “memory” of how extreme weather events and their impacts on people are changing, says Prof Niko Speybroeck, an epidemiologist and director of EM-DAT. He tells Carbon Brief:
“EM-DAT can be considered the world’s memory of disasters. It contains more than 27,000 natural and technological disasters. It’s not just a database. It makes it possible to know who was affected, when, where and with what consequences.”
The database is frequently used by climate scientists. It is often cited in research papers and underpinned analysis in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the impacts of climate change.
It is also used by government officials and environmental organisations.
The database is particularly important for global-south nations, which are less likely to have comprehensive national or regional records of disasters than those in the global north.
For example, the Indonesian government used EM-DAT to develop a national strategy against disasters, says Speybroeck.
The database has also been used to document the “disproportionate climate burden” borne by small-island nations, he adds, which “prompted the UN to release more funding” for these states.
EM-DAT is of critical importance to national and multinational initiatives tracking extreme weather in Africa, says Prof Dewald van Niekerk, head of the African Centre for Disaster Studies at North-West University in South Africa. Van Niekerk was one of the climate scientists who authored the open letter calling for EM-DAT to be protected from closure. He tells Carbon Brief:
“We use it on various levels, from sub-national straight up to continental level.”
Since 2018, van Niekerk has utilised EM-DAT to prepare reports on extreme weather events in Africa for the African Union. These efforts are to meet goals agreed under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a voluntary international agreement to prevent disasters from upending development.
Without EM-DAT, it would not be possible to conduct such analyses, he says:
“Not all [African] governments can compile these databases. Where they do, they are extremely fragmented. You can’t compare apples with apples.”
(Carbon Brief has also used EM-DAT data to investigate the impact of extreme weather on Africa, finding that such events killed at least 15,000 people on the continent in 2023.)
Uncertain future
Despite having a global impact, EM-DAT’s small team of researchers require just €300,000 ($350,000) a year to maintain operations.
For decades, EM-DAT obtained 90% of this funding from USAid, the US’s federal agency for foreign aid, says Speybroeck:
“[USAid] allowed us to work in an independent and neutral way, so we were not influenced by any politics. That was one of the strengths of the database. They only asked for us to leave it open access, meaning that anyone can use it.”
USAid was dismantled by Donald Trump after he became US president for the second time in January 2025. By July, the agency officially closed its doors.
Speybroeck received a letter in February 2025 informing him that his team were to lose their funding.
“I decided for a long time to keep silent,” he tells Carbon Brief. However, by the end of 2025, he chose to start speaking out about the impact of USAid cuts on EM-DAT.
Learning of the threats to the database, four leading climate scientists published an open letter in March calling for other governments, multilateral development banks and philanthropy to step in to stop the database from closing. It has attracted more than 4,000 signatures.
One of the letter authors, Prof Gabriele Messori, director of the Swedish Centre for Impacts of Climate Extremes at Uppsala University in Sweden, tells Carbon Brief:
“It’s very worrying that a long-term dataset that has become a reference for many different sectors, when looking at the impacts of a wide range of natural and technological events on society and the economy, could be suddenly interrupted.”
(The cuts to EM-DAT’s funding come as the Trump administration has laid off thousands of scientists and frozen research grants worth billions of dollars in the US. For more on how these actions are impacting climate science, see Carbon Brief’s explainer on how Trump is threatening polar research.)
Since going public about EM-DAT’s funding crisis, Speybroeck says he has had some “positive signals” from potential new funders, but “there is nothing on paper yet”.
Another letter author, Prof Dewald van Niekerk, says he hopes to see EM-DAT move towards a model of using multiple funding sources, to create a “more robust structure” where “no one can just pull the plug” on its work.
The post EM-DAT: Trump aid cuts could close database storing ‘world’s memory of disasters’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
EM-DAT: Trump aid cuts could close database storing ‘world’s memory of disasters’
Three countries have been named by the Paris Agreement’s compliance committee for failing to submit a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and repeatedly snubbing offers of help with their climate plans.
After months of internal debate over whether to identify serial non-responders, the Paris Agreement’s Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) named the three countries which have failed to engage with it over their NDCs on Friday.
It named Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and North Korea in a footnote of its annual report, adding that it decided to name them “with a view to facilitating engagement”, adding that representatives of the three nations had been invited to its meeting in early 2027 “with the purpose of identifying any challenges and constraints”.
“The Committee noted the importance of Parties engaging with the Committee in a timely manner, while noting that some delays may be due to the national capabilities and circumstances of the Parties”, the report said.
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In July, PAICC said 12 countries had ignored its repeated attempts to discuss why they had not published an NDC as required every five years under the 2015 Paris accord.
Members of the committee had been divided over whether to name them, but at a September meeting decided to do so in their annual report to the annual climate COP summit.
By the time the report was published on Friday, only Congo, Senegal and North Korea “had not communicated an NDC or submitted a [Biennial Transparency Report] and had not yet responded to any of the Committee’s notifications, despite several reminders issued by the Committee in this regard”.
Rainforest and renewable energy ambitions
The silence from Congo and Senegal is notable because the former is home to much of the Congo Basin rainforest while the latter has sought billions of dollars in climate finance to support its renewable energy ambitions.
After Brazil, Congo has more rainforest than any country in the world. This forest, and the country’s peatlands, absorb huge amounts of greenhouse gas but are fast being lost to expanding farmland, charcoal production, logging and mining.
Senegal signed a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Canada and wealthy European nations in 2023, to help it meet its renewable energy targets under the-then government of Macky Sall. It was chair of the Least Developed Countries group between January 2022 and December 2023.
Tejas Rao, who is researching the PAICC as part of a doctoral thesis at Cambridge University, said the governments of the three countries should engage with the committee.
“Engagement costs these governments very little and the committee has shown it will listen,” he said.
“Silence leaves the committee with no basis to help, and it leaves the [governments] exposed to the narrative that they are simply disengaged,” he told Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement requirement
The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all parties to publish an NDC every five years outlining their emissions reduction targets, with each plan meant to be more ambitious than the country’s last NDC.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in February 2025. While most countries missed this deadline, all but around 30 – mostly small emitters but including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have now submitted them.
Over the year, the PAICC – which is made up of government climate officials from developed and developing countries – has been communicating with governments that have not submitted NDCs and trying to overcome barriers to them doing so.
Some nations have cited exceptional circumstances as the reason for not submitting an NDC, a process that requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC, seen by Climate Home News, said that the country’s civil war had led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
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The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement and so do not have active NDCs, nor does Taiwan, which is not a UN member state.
Rao said that because the PAICC is “facilitative and non-punitive”, naming the countries “is meant to open a door, not close one – the invited consultation is the point”.
“In recent months, governments that explained their constraints, whether capacity, finance or domestic process, have been met with follow-up and support rather than sanction, and the number of silent governments has fallen sharply,” Rao said.
The post Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs appeared first on Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs