You really wouldn’t want to be a politician with all the difficult decisions they have to make.

Not only do they have to satisfy the needs, and self-interest, of the public that elect them, but they also have to keep in mind the future of the country. A real problem arises with the temptation to satisfy the voters who are now alive, rather than the potential ones, who can’t yet vote and probably haven’t been born.

It seems that modern democracies have some way to go until they’re mature enough to accept that the general wellbeing of society should take preference over self-interest.

In general, it’s the future that is neglected, as the last Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer demonstrates. It’s a bit like young folk putting off paying into a pension as the future is distant and the present more compelling. The surprise, rather, is that we expected the politicians to plan for the future, and of course they haven’t.

A courageous chancellor would be thinking long term and aiming to take steps that decarbonise our electricity production, improve and increase public transport, reduce flooding, and provide more home-grown food. He would particularly be looking at tax breaks and financial support so renewable energy companies can increase jobs.

There is already enough guidance available from international scientists to tell him what needs doing. There is sufficient evidence that the climate is disrupted. Indeed the Government’s own Climate Change Committee has stated that carbon dioxide emissions need a 34 per cent reduction by 2020, and at least 60 per cent by 2030. That would involve a third of our electricity being made from wind, sun and tides by 2020, and that’s a challenge.

Despite this advice, the chancellor decided that the future is a problem for another time, forgetting that inevitably it will arrive, and so has concentrated on policies that will only make the future worse, more expensive and more dangerous.

Thus he has committed himself to reducing the tax on high-carbon producing industries, while at the same time providing tax breaks for maritime oil and gas exploration, and land-based gas fracking. He has nailed his colours to gas-powered electricity for generations to come, so ensuring high-carbon production, and ensuring it will be difficult for renewable schemes to develop.

In addition, aviation and shipping emissions will not be counted until 2016, nor will the Green Bank be able to borrow money to lend until 2017, thus begging the question of why it’s there in the first place.

In 2050 my great grandsons will rightly wonder what Chancellor Osborne thought he was doing 40 years earlier.