Setting up a ‘climate council’ will let Government do nothing at all

WHAT ARE we like that it’s big news in environmental circles this week that the Government is appointing the first Climate Change Advisory Council, asks Victoria White.

Surely the Government doesn’t need to appoint 10 people onto a board to tell them the planet is burning because people are using too much fossil fuel and they’ve got to do something about it? Can’t they read the papers which reported the G7 yesterday committing to stop using fossil fuels by the end of the century?

Ah, but the Government may put the Advisory Council to other uses. The Council will tell the Government what to do but it will have no power to do anything. That way the Government can get away with doing nothing at all. Many environmentalists have campaigned for it to be modelled on the Fiscal Advisory Council which offers advice to the Government which the Government promptly ignores.