The New Zealand Initiative has released a report on climate change called the Pretence of Necessity. 

It's been written by a bloke called Matt Burgess who used to be Bill English's Senior Economic Advisor for 4 years and has a long history working on public policy, competition, governance and network industries including electricity, gas and telecommunications and infrastructure for both the government and private industry. 

In it, he says that at May’s Budget, the government will commit $4.5 billion to new spending on climate change, more than $2,000 per household and it will not reduce our emissions at all. 

His argument is we already have a cap-and-trade framework. We cap the total emissions and then we trade the spare with the Emissions Trading Scheme. So, if we launch a new policy to reduce a specific emission then the credits earned will then get transferred to other emission sectors. Meaning that overall, we get no gain at all. 

James Shaw will join me later to dispute this but the claims ring true with me. After all, so far nothing has worked and New Zealand emissions have increased year after year after year. 

I'd like to see emissions lowered. We have a finite world and we don't need to fill it full of exhaust. But I also know the whole world is run on energy and apart from hydro and wind it all comes from burning stuff. So, when we cap emissions, we're asking somebody to burn less stuff. 

But ever since the Emission Trading Scheme emerged as the world-wide tool to lower emissions, I've realised that it's a failed scheme, a market dreamt up by academics, a scheme that doesn't reduce emissions just moves them around a bit. 

Along with offsets it's created Never Never Land. A world where people make themselves feel good by transferring their energy use to someone else. 

The mindset hit its nadir when Coldplay announced their last world tour would be the world's first carbon-neutral concert tour. 

Which meant that the band still jetted around the world in their aeroplanes, consuming vast amounts of electricity at each show, while showering confetti over a hundred stadiums but claim it's all good for the planet because they plant forests all over the show. 

There's only one way to cut emissions and that's to cut emissions.  And the only way to cut emissions and keep the planet working is to develop a clean way to power it. Everything else is virtue signalling and blame-shifting.