It's been clear since we were preparing Australia's policy position for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit - where the global warming scaremongering was entrenched in UN policy - only 'No Regrets' policies could succeed and be politically sustainable. That's why Australia's policy position was to support the 'Toronto Targets' but with an important caveat:

"11 October 1990 - The Australian Government adopted an Interim Planning Target to stabilise greenhouse gas emission at 1988 levels by 2000 and to reduce emissions by 20 per cent by the year 2005 based on 1988 levels (known as the Toronto target). An important caveat was included in this target. This stated that measures which would have net adverse economic impacts nationally or on Australia's trade competitiveness would not be implemented in the absence of similar action by major greenhouse gas producing nations. Actions would be taken if benefits were realised in addition to the greenhouse gas emission reduction benefits, for example energy conservation. This became known as the 'no regrets' strategy. " http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/Background_Papers/bp9798/98bp04

The idea that action necessarily involves inflicting pain on voters is one of the main excuses for inaction. Investing heavily in renewable energy (and, where appropriate, nuclear energy) will benefit the entire population.

Renewable energy, supported by government incentives, is an enormous waste of money. Rational people realise this.

As an aside, it's notable that there is significant trend to pull-back on government incentives for renewable energy in Europe. They are starting to recognise the enormous costs. An excellent report by J. P. Morgan "Deep De-Carbonisation of Electricity grids" explains the issues and costs, although it understates the magnitude of the problem. I've extracted parts of the and commented on it here: http://judithcurry.com/2015/11/29/deep-de-carbonisation-of-electricity-grids/

Also of interest is this post by Energy Matters on the performance of Spain's solar thermal plants: http://euanmearns.com/a-review-of-concentrated-solar-power-csp-in-spain/ . Spain has 2/3 of the world’s solar thermal capacity. Clearly they do not provide baseload power. On some nights they don’t produce any power at all between sundown and sunup. The chart below is for the first 26 days of November.
http://s4.postimg.org/lk72nyral/temp.png
“Spain’s CSP plants delivered six times less stored power in November than they did in June.

Mark Lawson

Aidan - not inflicting pain is a reason, not an excuse. As Peter Lang points out, renewables are a very costly answer to the question of climate.. there will be pain, if emissions are to be cut, and that's that.. In fact, there will be no pain as none of the promises at Paris will mean anything at all..

Peter Lang - most interesting stuff.. I'll check out that link on the alleged 24-hour plant in Spain.

Mark Lawson,

I hope you might have time to read this article I've just had posted in an academic Journal,
"Why carbon pricing will not succeed" http://anglejournal.com/article/2015-11-why-carbon-pricing-will-not-succeed/

It is topical right now as it is directly relevant to the Paris climate summit and to some of Malcolm Turnbull's comments about possible future mitigation policies. I hope you might be able to make use of it to help inform your readers and followers.

Well there will be some pain.

Our idiot PM has already made the grandiose gesture of giving a billion dollars to poor neighbours to "help them adapt to climate change". Yep the climate change that has not happened for more than 18 years.

Climate change is obviously a non problem, but god it's a problem to have a PM who wants to be patted on the back by everyone he meets, & will spend enormous amounts of our money to be so patted.