Who cares?

In Wellington's Dominion Post, Susannah Bailey of Greenpeace, points out some of the flaws in the New Zealand Government's greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme. Some of her views are here, but in the newspaper article she writes that the scheme:

isn't coupled with an overall emissions reduction target.... Officials have conceded that the main goal of the scheme is to meet our Kyoto liability at least cost rather than to achieve emission reductions. 11 October, page B7

Exactly: New Zealand might or might not reduce its greenhouse gas emissions; which might or might not do anything to prevent climate change. Who really cares? The sole certainty is that the trading scheme will require a whole new bureaucracy to administer, whose costs will be borne, upfront, by taxpayers. Some of us may be successfully deluded into thinking that something is actually being done about climate change. The Government can then pass on to other issues, like the 145 violent crimes being committed in New Zealand every day. Perhaps it can set up a free telephone hotline and attribute any further increase to 'improved reporting'.