The Texas Public Policy Foundation released a new research paper analyzing several systemic errors in the federal government’s National Climate Assessment. With a new assessment currently being drafted under the direction of the Biden administration and slated for completion in 2023, The Fourth National Climate Assessment: A Crisis of Its Own Making is a timely analysis of the real data underlying the climate catastrophe narrative.

“The National Climate Assessment doesn’t just fail to meet its statutory requirements to present an accurate picture of climate change; it actually impedes public understanding of climate science through its use of outdated and unrealistic CO2 emissions forecasts,” said TPPF’s Brent Bennett, Ph.D. “Despite the Assessment’s support of the media-hyped narrative of an impending climate catastrophe, the facts show our future is brighter than ever.”

The Assessment vastly overstates the level of confidence in its predictions that climate change will severely damage our economy, health, and quality of life while downplaying many of the uncertainties surrounding its claims.

“Instead of worrying about whether future climate change will have catastrophic consequences and spending trillions of dollars to defend against that remote possibility, we should focus our time and money on improving human lives now,” Bennett continued. “Providing energy for the billions of people around the world living with zero or limited access to energy, and improving energy affordability in the developed world, will enable current and future generations to better handle whatever nature throws their way.”

Key Points

  • The Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) is not an unbiased assessment of climate science. It largely follows the climate change catastrophe narrative that advocates for reducing CO2 emissions as quickly as possible.
  • NCA4 relies heavily on an outdated and extreme emissions scenario, RCP8.5, to create unrealistic predictions of widespread environmental and economic damage from rising temperatures.
  • NCA4 fails to adequately justify the level of confidence that it ascribes to most of its predictions and makes only passing references to many of the uncertainties highlighted in its underlying studies.
  • The next National Climate Assessment should be subject to review by scientists willing to argue against its main conclusions, with alternative viewpoints noted in the final document.
  • Recent history contradicts the pessimistic predictions of NCA4. Climate resiliency and quality of life have improved dramatically for most of humanity as energy consumption and temperatures have risen over the past century.

View the full research paper: https://www.texaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2021-02-Bennett-LP-Fourth-National-Climate-Assessment11.pdf