It’s almost as if some people don’t wish to see the problem dealt with.

The US oil firm ExxonMobil met key European commission officials in an attempt to water down the European Green Deal in the weeks before it was agreed, according to a climate lobbying watchdog.

Documents unearthed by InfluenceMap revealed that Exxon lobbyists met Brussels officials in November to urge the EU to extend its carbon-pricing scheme to “stationary” sources, such as power plants, to include tailpipe emissions from vehicles using petrol or diesel.

Green groups believe this would be the least effective way to disincentive fossil fuel vehicles, and would rather allow countries to set their own emissions standards and targets for road emissions.

Leave aside all questions about whether it’s all happening or not for a moment and think within the structure we’re all told to accept these days.

Every economist on the planet is screaming that cap and trade, or a carbon tax, is the way to go. The Stern Review said so, the Nobel was awarded to Bill Nordhaus for saying so, James Hansen says so, the IPCC itself says a carbon tax would be a darn good idea, the IMF, the IEA, the OECD, everyone with even the merest microbe of brain cells agrees that even if it’s not the pure and perfect cure then it’s an excellent step along that path.

Now we’ve got Exxon on board - as they have been for some time actually - and advocating this agreed upon solution.

Who is opposing it? The green groups, the very people most concerned about the underlying problem. It’s as if they’re not taking their own declared position seriously, isn’t it?

They’re even ignoring a central point made in the Stern Review by claiming that regulation will be more efficient than an adjustment to market prices. This being why all the economists are shouting with one voice about what is that solution.

We’re entirely willing to ponder all sorts of views about climate change. But if we start with the assumption that it’s happening and also that something must be done then that something has to be the carbon tax. Anyone suggesting otherwise just isn’t being serious. That non-seriousness now apparently being something that all the green groups are guilty of.