National Assessment on Climate Change - Definition and Overview

The National Assessment on Climate Change (NACC) was a massive multidisciplinary effort to study and portray in regional detail the potential effects of human-induced global warming on the United States. The project was articulated into some 20 regional studies - each involving dozens of scientific and academic experts as well as representatives of industry and environmental groups. The final reports synthesizing regional and national findings were published in November 2000, titled "National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change." [1] (http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/nacc/default.htm)

The National Assessment was mandated by the United States Congress under the Global Change Research Act of 1990. Its report was attacked upon publication by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an industry-funded think tank with an anti-regulatory free-market philosophy and a longstanding history of opposing efforts to address global warming. CEI filed lawsuits seeking to have the NACC report declared unlawful and to suppress its dissemination.

In June 2002, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency produced its own, separate report on climate change, titled the "Climate Action Report." [2] (http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/ResourceCenterPublicationsUSClimateActionReport.html) It reached conclusions similar to the NACC report and was also attacked by CEI, which used the occasion to call for the firing of EPA head Christine Todd Whitman. [3] (http://dynamic.greenpeace.org/smoking-gun/CEImemo.swf)

The NACC report has also been attacked by other industry-funded think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute. Its critics claim that the report is flawed in its methodology and conclusions.

External links

• "National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/nacc/default.htm)," National Assessment on Climate Change, November 2000.
• "Climate Action Report (http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/ResourceCenterPublicationsUSClimateActionReport.html)," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, June 2002.