FEMA is responding to increasingly frequent climate change-fueled disasters. Hurricane season used to be the agency’s biggest concern. Now, it is activated around the clock as the US is battered by year-round disasters ranging from wildfires to spring thunderstorms producing biblical amounts of hail.

On January 24, while visiting hurricane disaster areas in North Carolina, President Donald Trump told reporters that his administration would likely “recommend that FEMA go away” while letting “the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen.

On Friday, while visiting victims of September’s Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, Mr. Trump said he was considering “getting rid of FEMA.” He now reportedly plans to sign an executive order as a step toward reshaping FEMA, which could eliminate the agency.

According to the executive order, the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council, co-chaired by the secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense, will assess FEMA’s effectiveness over the past four years, comparing its responses to state and private sector efforts of disaster relief.

Instead of having federal financial assistance flow through FEMA, the Republican president said Washington could provide money directly to the states.

FEMA provides funds to governments and individuals to rebuild after natural disasters, but Trump has criticized it for being too slow and costly.

President Donald Trump said he'll sign executive order to eliminate or overhaul FEMA on Friday. What would that mean for Mississippi disaster relief?

From national security to home insurance, the president has quickly changed America’s climate adaptation policies in important ways.

The federal administration and recalcitrant state leaders must be convinced to pull their heads out of the dirt and face the change that is coming — whether they want to acknowledge it or not.

Boston and the MBTA will receive nearly $13 million from the from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to protect neighborhoods and infrastructure from the impacts of climate change.

Tuesday's report, too rapid for peer-review yet, found global warming boosted the likelihood of high fire weather conditions in this month's fires by 35 percent and its intensity by 6 percent.

People walk on a street with slush in New Orleans, Louisiana, the United States, on Jan. 22, 2025. A rare winter storm, known as Enzo, has swept through the southern U.S. with record-breaking snow and bitterly cold weather. Lan Wei/Xinhua/ZUMA Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.