Quid bono?
Who benefits?
It is a fair question. In fact, it is the question that hydrocarbon companies have been expected to answer for decades. They have been accused repeatedly of financing climate propaganda, manipulating public opinion and obstructing climate action.
The curious thing is that there has never been much solid evidence for the grander versions of these accusations. What has existed instead is a steady supply of insinuations, fragments and circumstantial material, each piece inflated until it was made to carry a weight it could never support on its own.
Yet there was another question nobody seemed particularly interested in asking.
Who benefits from the climate industrial complex?
Because this is not merely an ideological movement. It is an economic system.
And it is remarkably good at feeding itself.
Those producing the narratives can make very good money producing them. Those using the narratives to secure financing for projects, programmes and careers can make considerably more money turning those narratives into policy. Some of that money then flows back towards the people generating and promoting the narrative.
The circle closes.
News creates urgency. Urgency creates political pressure. Political pressure creates programmes. Programmes create financing. Financing creates careers, companies, consultancies and entire industries. And the success of those industries provides another reason to produce more news, more urgency and more political pressure.
It is a self-feeding loop.
And money is only one part of the incentive.
There is status.
There is recognition.
There are conferences, titles, awards, advisory positions, institutional influence and the warm glow of being considered one of the people saving the planet.
Who, given the opportunity, would not want a piece of that?
The remarkable part is who ultimately pays for it.
The bill does not magically disappear into some abstract financial universe. It lands with taxpayers and ratepayers. It appears in taxes, electricity prices, subsidies, levies, infrastructure costs and the prices of the goods and services affected by all of them.
And unlike the people designing the system, the people paying for it generally do not get a vote on each individual transaction.
They simply receive the bill.
That is where the political incentive becomes particularly interesting.
The politicians who impose these arrangements upon the public are not necessarily sacrificing themselves for some higher principle. They receive benefits from the system as well.
They can project virtue.
They can demonstrate that they are on the right side of history.
They can cultivate an image of moral seriousness while directing enormous amounts of public money towards programmes carrying the appropriate ideological label.
And political careers eventually end.
At which point, the world of climate projects, consultancies, foundations, advisory boards and industry organisations has a remarkable capacity to provide comfortable second careers for people who spent their first careers helping to build the system.
Perhaps none of this proves that the climate industrial complex is fraudulent.
It does not need to.
It establishes something more basic and, in my view, more important.
There are enormous financial and social incentives attached to keeping the machine running.
That should make us sceptical.
Not because everyone involved is corrupt. Not because every climate project is useless. And certainly not because every climate concern is fabricated.
But because whenever an enormous system of money, political power, professional advancement and social status begins feeding itself, the first question should always be the same.
Quid bono?
Who benefits?
And perhaps, just as importantly:
Who pays?