New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has stood in for Prince William at a UN conference, describing herself as ‘an extremely poor substitute’.

Other examples of poor substitutes are candles substituting for light bulbs, wind turbines substituting for gas and coal power plants, electric vehicles substituting for the guttural roar of a V8, and bugs substituting for meat.

The Kiwi Prime Minister is the extremely poor substitute who dreams of inflicting poor substitutes on the entire planet in the name of climate science.

She spoke to delegates at the Earthshot Prize Summit about her ambition of turning New Zealand into the first nation to price agriculture emissions.

If Winston Churchill were alive he would surely describe Ms Ardern as he once described former UK Prime Minister Clement Attlee – ‘a modest politician who has much to be modest about’.

Pricing agricultural emissions means taxing farmers for the gas released (at both ends) by their livestock.

Under the plan, New Zealand farmers would be required to calculate and report to the government annually on how much gas their livestock had released.

They would then pay a price for those emissions.

Of course, a raft of well-paid government bureaucrats would be required to audit farms every year to ensure they were reporting correctly, and that no farts were sneaking out of animals unreported.

The New Zealand government has acknowledged that Ms Ardern’s methane ambition would drive some meat-producing farmers off the land.

But that doesn’t seem to be much of a problem. That would simply bring New Zealand into line with other nations being destroyed by climate botherers.

Incidentally, the only animal that does not fart is the sloth, but outside a handful of South American tribes no one much cares to eat sloth. It’s described as slimy, chewy, and the antithesis to fast-food.

Ms Ardern is no sloth. She’s working feverishly to destroy her country’s agricultural sector so as to put a dint in New Zealand’s 0.17 per cent contribution to world carbon emissions.

Take that, weather!

Ardern spoke at the summit when Prince William was unable to attend due to the Queen’s death.

Speaking remotely, the Prince apologised to summiteers that he had been unable to jet into New York because the royal family was still mourning his grandmother’s passing.

And here I was thinking he didn’t go to New York because the Earth was facing catastrophic climate change caused by emissions such as those released on flights from London to New York.

That the evangelists of catastrophic Climate Change (the political movement) don’t seem too worried about catastrophic climate change remains the number one reason not to worry about catastrophic climate change.

Prince William told the audience that protecting the environment ‘was a cause close to my grandmother’s heart’.

Well yes. But being concerned about the environment, as the Queen was, is very different to believing that we must dismantle Western civilisation to avert a climate disaster being caused by flatulent cows in New Zealand and jet flights taken by everyone other than yourself.

The Queen was far too sensible for such nonsense.

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