Mike Hosking: Climate change commission will achieve nothing

Opinion

From our "jobs for life" file comes yesterday's announcement of an interim climate change committee, which will eventually turn into a climate change commission.

And along with the zero carbon act, we are all headed for a clean green future. We are aiming for zero carbon by 2050.

I'll be 85 - might still be alive. Of course these ideas take time, this is big picture stuff. And so if you view these things with a passion, you can quite rightly argue we need to set sail at a pace, and start working as fast as we can because the track record until now is not good.

But in that lies the key.

Of course this is all Green Party policy. This is the Greens' price for being in the coalition. It is genuinely backed by Labour, not quite as vehemently of course, but the broad goals are the result of a joint approach.

But the reason it's worth questioning is because none of it's going to happen. And you want to at least ask just how much time, energy and, of course, money we are wanting to spend on doing something that isn't actually going anywhere.

As French President Emmanuel Macron said the other day, at yet another one of those fossil fuel burning international gab fests in France: we are losing the battle on climate change. And he is 100 per cent right. And he and everyone who peddles it is losing badly.

French President Emmanuel Macron. Photo / AP

This is not about whether climate change is real, or whether it's real and the current global population is entirely responsible for it. It's the simple reality that, whatever your view, globally there isn't enough desire or weight to actually do something about it. Because the simple truth is, even if you buy into carbon reduction and low emissions, it comes at a price governments all over the world simply aren't prepared to pay. And we know this to be true because of the Kyoto protocol: a lot of noise, no action.

The Paris accord: lots of noise, no action. If good will, hot air and earnestness reduced carbon, the problem would have been sorted by now.

But the actual answer, the loss of jobs and the destruction of industries required, is simply a price too high to pay for most governments. James Shaw, have no doubt, is passionate about this committee-slash-commission being different.

But come back to me in 5, 10, 20, 30 years and let's see what's actually happened, versus who's just sat on a well-paid government committee, writing reports.