If you want to understand the impact of fossil fuels on the climate, it would be helpful to measure exactly how much carbon dioxide they are contributing to the atmosphere. Countries including the United States report their fossil fuel emissions based on data about energy production, trading and usage, but the numbers are difficult to independently verify.

That’s where NOAA’s data comes in. It shows exactly which greenhouse gases are in the air, and where. The carbon 14 measurements give a much more precise picture of the source of the carbon dioxide, and which efforts to reduce emissions are succeeding — or not.

This year, the International Energy Agency published data showing that worldwide energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were flat in 2016 for the third straight year. Yet data from NOAA showed that the total concentration of carbon dioxide is rising at a faster pace than ever before.

There are a number of possible explanations for this divergence. The most likely one is that oceans or soils are absorbing less carbon dioxide than in the past. Another is that there are annual differences but that the underlying increase in emissions rates remains — and is driven by fossil fuels. A third is that fossil fuel emissions are not in fact going down, but rather that countries are underreporting them, knowingly or not. There is no evidence for this, but a clear signal from carbon 14 could help expose any reporting errors.

The greenhouse gas monitoring network costs about $7 million a year. Defunding it would be a huge mistake. The data it generates is helping scientists understand how our highly complex climate system works — and how we can help stabilize it to fend off environmental catastrophes.

This is precisely the kind of basic science the federal government needs to support. Yet President Trump’s proposed budget calls for a cut of up to one-third in NOAA’s oceanic and atmospheric research programs, with climate science a specific target.

For comparatively little money, the United States could be getting an independent count of our fossil-fuel-related emissions. And once the carbon 14 research was up and running, the government could expand the program, using the air flasks from around the world to verify other countries’ claims of emissions reductions.

As the United States retrenches, though, China is already heavily investing in atmospheric monitoring, including carbon 14 research. It’s just one more example of how an Asian superpower is stepping up to embrace the future as America chooses to render itself irrelevant.