An American nonprofit conservative think tank, the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) promotes an environmental regulation program that seeks to solve problems by relying on a competitive private sector rather than on government control and regulation. The NCPA maintains offices in Dallas, Texas, and Washington, D.C. Well over half of its funding comes from foundations, with the rest from corporations and individuals. Acting as an organizer for other conservative groups, the NCPA also conducts its own free-market-oriented analysis of various issues.

The NCPA's E-Team focuses on environmental policy. The individuals who form the E-Team are climate- change skeptics who opposed the Kyoto Protocol and also oppose any greenhouse gas (GHG) regulation (Axelrod, 2004). NCPA scholars hold that the causes and consequences of the current global warming are unknown. Since it would be very expensive to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions substantially, they believe doing so would result in economic decline and increased environmental destruction with little or nothing accomplished to prevent global warming, whatever its cause.

A typical project of the group was an analysis of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Citing the purpose of the IPCC as being to provide a comprehensive, objective, scientific, technical and socio-economic assessment of the current understanding of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation, the NCPA concludes that, despite dire predictions of world temperature changes that could result in a global sea level rise, tropical disease spread, accelerated rate of loss of glaciers and ice caps, and increased severity of drought and flooding, forecasts in Chapter 8 of the report violate basic forecasting principles and are therefore invalid.

Because the NCPA is principally concerned with opposing government regulation in favor of promoting private alternatives, the group has concluded, for example, that global warming regulation is a key portfolio risk for state and local pension funds and has recommended that pension fund administrators not promote global warming legislation unless they can demonstrate how such regulation will benefit their portfolios (Botterill, 2003).

The 2007 NCPA publication A Global Warming Primer maintains that predictions by some scientists that global warming will cause such things as droughts, floods, and hurricanes of greater intensity are not valid. Given its stance, the group recommends "focused adaptation," taking steps to adapt to warmer conditions, rather than implementing measures that it feels would have more negative economic impact than is justified given the facts that the group accepts as valid regarding global warming.

References

1. Axelrod, Regina S., David Leonard Downie, and Norman J. Vig, eds. The Global Environment: Institutions, Law, and Policy. 2d ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004.

2. Botterill, Linda C., and Melanie Fisher, eds. Beyond Drought: People, Policy, and Perspectives. Collingwood, Vic.: CSIRO, 2003.

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