Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is an independent body composed of scientists and scholars who evaluate the causes and impacts of global climate change. Established by the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) in 2008, the NIPCC emerged from concerns regarding the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, particularly regarding perceived biases in the assessment of climate change causes. The NIPCC aims to provide an alternative perspective, asserting that natural factors play a more significant role than human activities in climate change.
Their foundational report, "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate," challenges the consensus that human greenhouse gas emissions are primarily responsible for recent global warming. The NIPCC questions the significance of observed warming trends and emphasizes the need for a thorough investigation into both natural and anthropogenic influences on climate. The organization argues that many policies aimed at combating climate change may be unnecessary, as they believe evidence does not support the notion that increasing carbon dioxide levels lead to harmful warming effects. Overall, the NIPCC serves as a platform for alternative scientific discourse on climate issues, reflecting a viewpoint that contrasts with mainstream climate science narratives.
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
- DATE: Established 2007
Mission
The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is an international panel of nongovernmental scientists and scholars assembled to address the causes and consequences of global climate change. The NIPCC was established by the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). The SEPP was founded in 1990 by eminent atmospheric physicist (and former director of the United States Weather Satellite Service) S. Fred Singer,
on the premise that sound, credible science must form the basis for health and environmental decisions that affect millions of people and cost tens of billions of dollars every year.
NIPCC set out to produce an independent evaluation of the available scientific evidence on the causes of climate change. Motivation for this grew out of widespread dissatisfaction with the global climate assessment reports of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in particular the Fourth Assessment Report (2007).
SEPP brought together an international panel of nongovernmental scientists and scholars who were not predisposed to believe that climate change is caused mostly by human greenhouse gas emissions. The organization’s report, Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate (2008), focused on evidence that the NIPCC felt that the IPCC had ignored. The report stems from an international climate workshop in Vienna in April 2007, organized by the NIPCC.
Significance for Climate Change
The NIPCC’s 2008 report aims to provide an independent, nongovernmental second opinion on the global warming issue. NIPCC claims
the central problems for policymakers in the debate over global warming are (a) is the reported warming trend real and how significant is it? (b) how much of the warming trend is due to natural causes and how much is due to human-generated greenhouse gases? and (c) would the effects of continued warming be harmful or beneficial to plant and wildlife and to human civilization?
The report presents evidence that helps provide answers to all three questions.
The NIPCC could find no convincing evidence or observations of significant from other than natural causes. The authors sum up their findings as follows:
This NIPCC report falsifies the principal IPCC conclusion that most of the reported warming (since 1979) is “very likely” (that is, 90-99 percent certain) caused by the human emission of greenhouse gases. In other words, increasing carbon dioxide is not responsible for current warming. Policies adopted and called for in the name of “fighting global warming” are unnecessary.
The organization continued to promote global climate change denial across the United States throughout the 2010s. By the 2020s, it was widely considered discredited by most mainstream science organizations.
"Climate Change Reconsidered." NIPCC, 28 May 2024, climatechangereconsidered.org/. Accessed 21 Dec. 2024.
"Heartland Institute and Its NIPCC Report Fail the Credibility Test." Government Accountability Project, 2018, whistleblower.org/politicization-of-climate-science/global-warming-denial-machine/heartland-institute-nipcc-fail-the-credibility-test/. Accessed 21 Dec. 2024.
"What Is Climate Change? A Really Simple Guide." BBC News, 26 Nov. 2024, www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24021772. Accessed 21 Dec. 2024.