Years ago, I heard the Jewish comedian Jackie Mason performing in Beverly Hills, riffing on the primary motivation of wealthy liberals. They do things, he suggested, not because they actually accomplished anything, but because “I have to look at myself in the mirror.”

Mason was prophetic, particularly regarding here in California, where progressive politics – outside of promoting race and gender grievances – has boiled down to a single-minded attachment to slowing climate change.

To satisfy the gentry’s urgent need to feel noble and better than others, we are embarked on an ever-more extreme jihad to battle global warming, with the state, pursuant to an executive order from Gov. Jerry Brown, committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 – and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 – versus the previous mandate of reaching 1990 levels by 2020. It seems clear that we are about to wage a war of increasing intensity on climate change, surely not at the expense of depriving Google executives and other oligarchs their private jets, but certainly down to the last affordable single-family house or decent factory job.

Symbolic Gestures, Little Impact

Of course, environmental problems need to be addressed, but one has to wonder if current policy will actually impact global climate change. Indeed, as explained in a new report by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, our current green jihad is likely to do little to nothing toward cutting global emissions – unless nations with far greater emissions adopt similar measures. The report suggests that an extreme goal of an 80 percent reduction could, ultimately, make things worse.

The report, authored by attorneys David Friedman and Jennifer Hernandez, carefully analyzes the projected impact of California’s Draconian climate change legislation. Simply put, in the most basic measurement, our greenhouse gas emissions simply don’t matter much. In 2011, California accounted for less than 1 percent of global CO2-equivalent emissions, and less than 0.065 percent of the worldwide annual CO2e emissions increase during 1990-2011. Given that California is already a low-emitting state, in large part due to its mild climate, even if California cut back to zero greenhouse-gas emissions, it would have almost no measurable affect on climate change risks.

The increase in GHG emissions comes mostly from elsewhere, even within the United States. But most emissions growth is linked to increases in developing countries, such as China and India. From 2000-11, global CO2e emissions increased by more than 40 percent. Over the same period, California’s CO2e emissions rose by 2 percent and declined by approximately 10.7 percent from 2007-11. Despite population increases and economic growth, California’s total emissions rose by roughly 8 million metric tons while global emissions increased by almost 13 billion metric tons.

Unintended Consequences

Ever the realist, at least when it comes to politics, Gov. Jerry Brown recognizes that California’s efforts are, almost by definition, largely symbolic. “We can do things in California” to fight climate change, Brown recently observed, “but if others don’t follow, it will be futile.”

The problem is that not many of our competitor states are following California’s lead, except, notably, Oregon, where the governor has been embroiled in a seamy scandal over green energy. Meanwhile, our biggest competitors – Nevada, Texas, Utah, North Carolina – do not seem anxious to join the party. They regard California’s regulatory regime as a perfect spur to lead both companies and residents out of the Golden State.

Since 1990, 3.8 million former California residents, or about equal to the populations of Oregon or Oklahoma, have moved to other parts of the country where per capita GHG levels are 50 percent higher than in California. Each job or resident that moves from California boosts net GHG levels. The cumulative net CO2e emission increases generated by the unprecedented migration of the state’s former residents has already nearly offset the GHG reduction achieved by California’s emission-reduction mandates.

Why continue?

Like any major policy initiative, the state’s climate change offensive will producers winners, although, in the short run, at least, many more losers. For one thing, the fixation on carbon-free energy has led to much higher electricity prices, 43.5 percent above the national average in December 2014 according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. This is bad news for industries that need electricity, and is one reason why many manufacturers go elsewhere.

It’s not too great for commuters, either. As of May 12, California’s average cost per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.73, the highest in the country – including even Hawaii and Alaska – and more than a dollar higher than the national average, $2.66. Gas prices on average are still about 21 percent lower than a year ago in the U.S., but 11 percent lower in California.

The state’s climate policy, particularly in its new, more militant form, also is likely to reduce California’s job creation. Although enjoying a brief resurgence, California employment has consistently underperformed other states over the longer term.

Nor has anyone thought in depth about how much must be invested to meet the ever-more-extreme emissions goals being implemented. A report by the California Council on Science and Technology concluded that even a reduction of 60 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 would require technologies not yet available or cost-effective and very significant, costly initiatives, including demolishing or retrofiting almost all buildings in the state.

Meeting the new target of an 80 percent cut by 2050 would require the use of even more speculative technologies, including those that the CCST reserachers considered to be “in development, not yet available” or merely “research concepts.”

Yet such problems do not seem to impinge much on Sacramento’s political class. Any group willing, as is most egregiously the case with the Latino caucus, to wage war on their own people, are not going to worry too much about such subtleties.

So then, who wins? It’s certainly not the environment, but some of the oligarchs in Silicon Valley may benefit as they have been feeding at the renewable-energy trough at the expense of less-well-off ratepayers. Then there’s the whole bureaucracy, and their academic allies, who can enjoy profitable employment by dreaming up new ways to make life in California more expensive and difficult for average citizens – envisioning schemes that the taxpayers have to finance. And, certainly, the climate change agenda could benefit multifamily housing builders, who will seek to force often-unwilling Californians into residences in which most would rather not spend their lives.

Yet, as Chapman’s Hernandez and Friedman point out, not too many states – and, certainly, few developing countries, who are desperate to raise additional hundreds of millions of people out of poverty – are likely to follow this path. To have such a wonderful, resource-rich state as California suffer the nation’s highest levels of poverty and inequality is not going to sell people in Texas, much less in China or India, on adopting our state’s approach.

Of course, most in the media will simply nod in admiration for California’s foresight, even while the bulk of political leaders will simply neglect to follow these policies. Most nations and states would be hard-pressed to surrender affordable housing and blue-collar employment for the privilege of being climate-policy warriors. And none has the concentration of industries – such as entertainment and software – that allow California’s leaders to think they can do away with carbon-based energy without negative effects.

But who cares about reality when you have idealism, the courage of conviction and little regard for the average citizen? So Jerry Brown will be feted at the upcoming Paris climate conference as a farsighted leader moving his state toward a better world. And, as long as the current property-value and tax-revenue bubbles continue, he can certainly persuade a gullible media that you can wage climate jihad without turning the entire economy into collateral damage. Californians struggling to find decent work, or an affordable house, those suffering the consequence of the state’s religious crusade, can only stand by as the governor and his friends gaze into the mirror with obvious collective delight.

Joel Kotkin is the R.C. Hobbs Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University in Orange and the executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism (www.opportunityurbanism.org).

His most recent book is “The New Class Conflict” (Telos Publishing: 2014).