We’re trying to go backwards and forwards simultaneously – and it is futile.

I’m old enough to remember the Goon Show, and in the celebrated episode where they robbed the Bank of England, the getaway car had a radiator painted on the back “so everyone will think we are going the other way”.

We have many such tricks in climate policy, things that appear to mean one thing but actually mean another. Last month, we touched on the seriously flawed, innocuous-sounding “no additional warming” policy on methane emissions.

Another classic is “justifying” expanding urban arterials to ease congestion. Screeds have been written on “induced demand” and how expanded highways attract more cars until they too clog up, but on a grander scale (generally within four years of a road’s opening). A notorious classic is Houston’s Katy Freeway, peaking at 26 lanes but still snarling up.

And it’s not just this government. Labour’s energy minister Megan Woods waxed lyrical about how well we could decarbonise electricity because it was already largely renewable. It’s like telling someone living on bean sprouts and walnuts they could easily lose weight by changing their diet.

But back to now.

By slamming banks for restricting lending to fossil fuel industries, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and colleagues fly in the face of international thinking. In the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, 140 banks with US$49 trillion in assets (200 x New Zealand’s GDP, folks) committed to “transition the operational and attributable greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their lending and investment portfolios…” and 2030 targets “focus on priority sectors where the bank can have the most significant impact, ie, the most GHG-intensive sectors …”

Add in actuaries (professional risk managers) cautioning on “planetary insolvency” due to climate impacts, and we have to wonder why political leaders who claim to champion freedom are intent on disempowering banking, increasing its risks and worsening the climate emergency in the process.

An old chestnut is that climate initiatives aren’t cost-effective. While some strategies are certainly dearer than others per tonne of carbon saved, by far the greatest cost is the cost of inaction. Business-as-usual is anything but free. Plus, “not cost-effective” statements rarely mention the time frame being considered, inviting an assumed default of a year or three.

What’s needed is seriously long-term thinking, and then the payback looks very different. Experts consistently advise just 2% of GDP invested well could avert climate catastrophe. By comparison, Cyclone Gabrielle alone cost almost 4% of GDP (US$9.2 billion of US$252 billion).

I could go on, but the real question is: What lesson might we draw?

Of the above examples (methane, transport, energy, banking and cost-effectiveness), officialdom misrepresented well-known facts on the first three to suit ideology. Banking offers more excuse for ministerial ignorance, but when collective badmouthing by Messrs Luxon, Peters, Seymour and Jones contradicts international wisdom, it’s a stretch to grant them collective lenience. And while the costs of climate actions are less clear cut, there are well-founded reports from financial experts like the giant Boston Consulting Group that show climate investments pay well.

When ignorance of the facts seems the kindest thing we can say about ministers of all colours, it looks like our whole political system badly needs a shake-up. Meanwhile, let’s get painting those radiators on the backs of ministerial limos.