Meteorologist Ada Monzón announced her resignation on Wednesday from the Committee of Experts and Advisors on Climate Change, amid an ongoing drought emergency and without seeing the Legislature approve the Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation and Resilience Plan, which has remained stalled since 2024. In a social media post, Monzón said she is leaving to pursue new professional opportunities and to focus on educating and communicating about climate issues through other platforms.
She said she co-authored a foundational document meant to guide public policy for decades and stressed her departure does not mean she will stop supporting the Plan or climate efforts; she said she informed Committee president Waldemar Quiles Pérez, secretary of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, that she remains available to collaborate. The Committee was created under Puerto Rico's Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation and Resilience Law (Act 33-2019) and originally announced by then-Governor Wanda Vázquez in September 2019.
Following multiple resignations over recent years, the group now consists only of climatologist Rafael Méndez Tejeda and ecologist and engineer Carl Soderberg. The administration of Governor Jenniffer González has not taken action to fill the Committee's vacancies.