Matthew Hooton does a great job of explaining the costly agenda of the Climate Change Commission.The article is paywalled, but here are the key lines:It has become clear that the commission is not primarily or even mainly concerned with New Zealand reducing global emissions.…By far the biggest contribution New Zealand can make to reducing climate change is funding projects in developing economies to reduce their emissions and prevent clear-felling of rainforests. Such projects cost less than $20 to remove the equivalent of one tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2e tonne) from the atmosphere. …But despite the commission believing climate change is a global crisis, it doesn’t want New Zealand to [reduce emissions offshore]. Instead, it wants New Zealand to achieve net zero when measured almost entirely by activity within our borders. Even then, it says we could achieve net zero for around $50 per CO2e tonne … But the commission doesn’t want to do that either.Instead, Carr explicitly rejects New Zealand achieving the biggest possible reduction in CO2e emissions for the least cost. He says he wants to use climate change to radically transform every aspect of how we live our lives.This includes how we work and make money, but Carr and his commission’s ambitions are much bigger, including what amounts to constitutional change. This is the commission pursuing a wider agenda at the expense of its first statutory purpose, to mitigate climate change.

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