A panel of climate change experts calling itself the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, headed by S. Fred Singer, this week released a report that competes head-on with the Summary for Policymakers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The group’s name highlights the fact that, contrary to common perceptions that it is an objective body of scientists, the IPCC comprises not only scientists but also government bureaucrats and policy shapers, and its Summary for Policymakers reflects strong political biases.
The report, which can be read here, concludes:
Our findings, if sustained, point to natural causes and a moderate warming trend with beneficial effects for humanity and wildlife. This has obvious policy implications: Schemes proposed for controlling CO2 emissions, including the Kyoto Protocol, proposals in the U.S. for federal and state actions, and proposals for a successor international treaty to Kyoto, are unnecessary, would be ineffective if implemented, and would waste resources that can better be applied to genuine societal problems [Singer, Revelle and Starr 1991].
Even if a substantial part of global warming were due to greenhouse gases – and it is not – any control efforts currently contemplated would give only feeble results. For example, the Kyoto Protocol – even if punctiliously observed by all participating nations – would decrease calculated future temperatures by only 0.02 degrees C by 2050, an undetectable amount.
In conclusion, this NIPCC report falsifies the principal IPCC conclusion that the reported warming (since 1979) is very likely 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.
It is regrettable that the public debate over climate change, fueled by the errors and exaggerations contained in the reports of the IPCC, has strayed so far from scientific truth. It is an embarrassment to science that hype has replaced reason in the global debate over so important an issue.
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