The fact is that it’s not easy being green just now. Physics, engineering and economics in combination have a nasty habit of eventually destroying the dreams of the climate true believers. It’s just that some of these true believers are so deluded – or should that be dumb? – that they can’t see what is staring them in the face.

Take turncoat Matt Kean as one example. It’s hard to believe that he was once the Liberal treasurer of New South Wales as well as the energy minister. But I guess that’s the return for being a master of factional gameplaying and having powerful backroom backers.

With the defeat of the Coalition government in New South Wales led by the ineffective Dom Perrottet – by the way, he never had the numbers in cabinet – Kean headed for the exit door very quickly. He is now the chair of the Climate Change Authority (CCA) appointed by none other than B1, Labor’s Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen.

The CCA doesn’t really do anything apart from put out highly political and tendentious reports that no one takes any notice of. The agency has no legislative powers; it is there to advise the government of the day on climate change matters. It’s just that the government is under no obligation to take any notice.

But Kean has been only too happy to use his new position to deliver ridiculous sermons as well as direct the organisation to undertake highly dubious and politically motivated analysis. The laughable ‘research’ undertaken on the Coalition’s proposed nuclear power proposal is a case in point.

But just recently Mattyboy has been channelling our very own Jimbo with a bit of juvenile alliteration which he, no doubt, considers as a highly convincing way to make his point. ‘When it comes to Maga trends or the megatrend of decarbonisation, the tsunami of capital and innovation all seems to be heading one way,’ according to the CCA chair. (Note here to both Kean and Jimbo: the use of sound repetition is what school kids do, not grown-ups.)

Now Kean is very keen to play down the significance of the election of Donald Trump as President of the US. The fact is that Trump quickly pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement, is in the process of defunding the Environmental Protection Agency and has suspended payments made under the deeply green-tinged Inflation Reduction Act as well as the Infrastructure and Jobs Act. Evidently, there is nothing to read into these developments.

The way Kean views the situation – you might want to grab a vomit bag here – ‘science and capital are underlying currents that will continue shaping the world’s decarbonisation trajectory. The volatility of global politics and events captures headlines, but cooler heads will keep eyes on the prize of what’s at stake if we don’t act, and how much we stand to gain when we do’.

He quotes questionable figures about global spending on energy and infrastructure and maintains that most of this spending is ‘green’. The figures are basically made up and just think about ‘infrastructure’ – all sorts of things fit into that definition.

So let me give you some real figures.  Executive Order 14154, Section 7, Terminating the Green New Deal reads: ‘All agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.’

The immediate consequence is that close to $US300 billion left from the IRA is in limbo. Resulting from this decision, the construction of a large battery plant in Georgia has been cancelled ($US2.6 billion); an energy storage project in Arizona has been dropped ($US1.2 billion); and a solar-cell facility has been shelved ($US200 million).  The company planning to make underseas cables for offshore wind installations has also suspended its operations.

I guess these are what Kean would call Maga trends which, on his logic, are completely trivial.

The trouble for him is that green projects are being cancelled left, right and centre right around the world, including here in Australia. He might not care to admit it, but the future of offshore wind here is looking highly unlikely with only a handful of projects still on the drawing board and all paused until after the election.

The stark reality is that the economics of offshore wind makes these projects not feasible. The operators would have to charge governments such a high price to achieve workable business models that cash-strapped Victoria and New South Wales will likely decline to participate.

Offshore wind projects are being cancelled around the world and companies are having to write down the value of the ones they own. At one stage, BP showed a great deal of interest in offshore wind but has done a 180-degree turnaround and is investing big time in oil and gas.

And what would Kean say about green hydrogen’s future? I’m sure there are plenty of Speccie readers who are enjoying the fate of green hydrogen projects in this country as much as I am.

The very idea was always far-fetched – too expensive, no customers, insufficient renewable energy, too dangerous, no infrastructure. Using electricity to make hydrogen to make electricity never made any sense.

But B1 was as excited as a toddler who has drunk too much red lemonade. Green hydrogen was going to be the basis of Australia becoming a renewable energy superpower. It was going to earn Australian big export bucks, either being transported directly or embedded in green steel and green aluminium. This guy would have failed Year 10 science at school.

In fact, Twiggy Forrest, one of the world’s most consummate green grifters, was one of the first to drop the green hydrogen dream in Australia. The refusal of the newly elected Crisafulli government in Queensland to stump up a cool billion dollars to underwrite a green hydrogen project in Gladstone has killed off that one. Origin and BP have also bailed on their projects.

On one estimate, only one per cent of green hydrogen projects on the drawing board in Australia are now live.  One good thing about this development is that taxpayers will never have to hand over the billions of dollars that were on offer for developers of green hydrogen projects, particularly the production tax credits. No production, no handouts.

Don’t bother thinking about Europe. The German constitutional court refused to allow the government to redirect Covid monies to the green transition and so there is a real shortage of funds there. With the need to spend more on defence to help Ukraine and as a deterrent to Putin, green spending will necessarily be wound back in many European countries.

It may be that over time climate commissar Kean has to rethink his career direction. There are plenty of indications that the green madness is abating and that the caravan is moving on. Governments have other more pressing matters to deal with. It’s even looking like a megatrend, as well as a Maga trend.