The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is what its name suggests: an international panel of nongovernment scientists and scholars who have come together to understand the causes and consequences of climate change. Because we are not predisposed to believe climate change is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, we are able to look at evidence the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ignores. Because we do not work for any governments, we are not biased toward the assumption that greater government activity is necessary.

NIPCC traces its roots to a meeting in Milan in 2003 organized by the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), a nonprofit research and education organization based in Arlington, Virginia. SEPP, in turn, was founded in 1990 by Dr. S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist, and incorporated in 1992 following Dr. Singer’s retirement from the University of Virginia.

Originally called “Team B,” NIPCC was created to provide an independent “second opinion” on the topics addressed by the initial drafts of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report. When the Summary for Policymakers of that report was released in February 2007, “Team B” met again, this time in Vienna, changed its name to NIPCC, and started work on what would become this report. A score of independent scientists from around the world began to share their research and ideas with Dr. Singer, as they continue to do. Some of these scientists have asked not to be named in NIPCC reports for fear of losing research grants and being blacklisted by professional journals.

In April 2008, The Heartland Institute published Dr. Singer’s first critique of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report. That publication, titled Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate, listed 24 contributors from 14 countries and included a foreword by Dr. Frederick Seitz, one of the world’s most renowned scientists. (Dr. Seitz passed away on March 2, 2008.) It was subtitled “Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.”

Work on the full NIPCC report continued, with more scientists joining the research team and positive feedback coming from scholars around the world. The report got a major boost when Dr. Craig Idso, chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, agreed to combine the extensive collection of reviews of scientific research he helped write and post on his organization’s Web site with the work Dr. Singer had started.

In June 2009, the first full NIPCC report was published by The Heartland Institute. It is titled Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). The new report, some 880 pages in length, is the most comprehensive critique of the IPCC’s positions ever published. It lists 35 contributors and reviewers from 14 countries and presents in an appendix the names of 31,478 American scientists who have signed a petition saying “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”

Also in June 2009, NIPCC submitted comments by Dr. Kenneth Haapala on the EPA’s Endangerment Finding. The comments can be found here.

What was Dr. Singer’s and Dr. Idso’s motivation? It wasn’t financial self-interest: Except for a foundation grant late in the process to enable Dr. Idso to devote the many hours necessary to assemble and help edit the final product, no grants or contributions were provided or promised to the authors in return for producing this report. Nor was the motivation political: No government agency commissioned or authorized this effort, and the authors do not advise or support the candidacies of any politicians or candidates for public office.

Dr. Singer, Dr. Idso, and the contributors and reviewers of NIPCC donated their time and best efforts to produce this report out of concern that the IPCC was provoking an irrational fear of anthropogenic global warming based on incomplete and faulty science. Global warming hype has led to demands for unrealistic efficiency standards for cars, the construction of uneconomic wind and solar energy stations, the establishment of large production facilities for uneconomic biofuels such as ethanol from corn, requirements that electric companies purchase expensive power from so-called “renewable” energy sources, and plans to sequester, at considerable expense, carbon dioxide emitted from power plants. While there is nothing wrong with initiatives to increase energy efficiency or diversify energy sources, the scientists who make up NIPCC are convinced they cannot be justified as a realistic means to control climate.

Seeing science clearly misused to shape public policies that have the potential to inflict severe economic harm, particularly on low-income groups, NIPCC’s team of scientists chose to speak up for science at a time when too few people outside the scientific community know what is happening, and too few scientists who know the truth have the will or the platforms to speak out against the IPCC.

For more information about the NIPCC, contact Tammy Nash, media relations manager, The Heartland Institute, at tnash@heartland.org.