So, the UK is the first major country to halve greenhouse gas emissions (53 percent fall) from the 1990 baseline. Now that’s a win, however you look at it. The major contributor to this reduction is our greener electricity generation – moving away from coal and relying upon wind and gas have reaped huge rewards – a 78 per cent fall in carbon emissions from the power sector.

So why has this sector performed so well?

The obvious answer is that the consumer has not been required to do anything, other than pay, for the change. They flick the switch and the lights come on now, just as they did in 1990. Dirty coal to clean wind has not affected how the consumer lives or what appliances they have at home.

Imagine for one minute how successful the policy would have been if switching to green power meant replacing our electrical appliances – “sorry Mrs Biggins but you need a green electricity TV and microwave and all your light bulbs need to be changed to use this green electricity” – is not a conversation that has been needed.

The lessons from this are obvious, well to some of us anyway.

You get greater buy in to change if the consumer doesn’t have to do anything – no lifestyle change; not ripping out appliances to be replaced with green alternatives; no need to fit extra lights in the house because green power works differently to dirty and isn’t as bright. Yet many are still wedded to the enforced change approach. It will fail.

The consumers who are keen to switch will do so; some will be fiercely opposed and won’t. The rest, I suspect the majority, will simply carry on with their lives and wait for any upstream changes to take place.