In setting an unachievable goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2045, we have become accustomed to the SNP Scottish Government being all stick and few carrots for homeowners and car drivers.
2045 was a random target anyway, not based on any proper assessment of practicality except the desire to score a political point over the UK Government's 2050.
But that didn't matter to the SNP-Labour administration running Edinburgh Council until 2022, who weren't going to be outdone and set an even crazier goal of net zero by 2030, which the dogs in our potholed streets even then know was impossible.
Only recently has the SNP at Holyrood begun to waken up to just how unachievable the 2045 goal is likely to be, reining in the draconian Heat in Buildings Bill which threatened to impose ridiculous insulation and green energy demands on people living in older properties, particularly tenement flats, which would have crashed the property market.
But they are still insistent the 2045 target can be met and are set to allow councils to ramp up campaigns against private motorists, no matter how unfair they may be.
In a written statement on reducing car use published last week, transport secretary Fiona Hyslop spelt out the need to disincentivise motoring, including allowing councils to impose road charging and to make sure they have the correct powers needed to introduce such schemes.
We should be under no illusion that there will be an appetite for a congestion charge among many Edinburgh councillors, and former transport convener Scott Arthur, now a Labour MP, floated the idea last year, despite it being rejected by a 3-1 majority 20 years ago.
At least there was some acknowledgement that a new congestion charge could only be brought in if there were suitable public transport improvements first, but the chances of that happening are non-existent because neither the council nor government has the money and a few more buses won't cut it.
There is a congestion charge of £15 a day in Central London, but London has a proper tube network as well as buses and overground trains.
The point of Edinburgh's congestion charge plan in 2005 was to fund the full tram network to the south and the completion of the loop to Granton, which is now being priced at well over £2 billion, so it was a pay-now, benefit-later approach that was always bound to be rejected.
There is an argument for road charging as an alternative to fuel duty, particularly if stalling sale of electric cars pick up, but as fuel duty is reserved to Westminster any council introducing a congestion charge would be putting yet another financial burden on hard-pressed drivers, already paying Vehicle Tax. And it won't be too much longer before the whole of Edinburgh is a controlled parking zone.
Transport Scotland accepts the point of such levies is to act as a disincentive, so success would mean no income, but it's inevitable they would become revenue streams on which councils would rely.
But giving Edinburgh Council power to introduce any kind of charge and expecting it to think twice, when it is facing huge cost reductions, is like taking children to a Cadbury's shop and expecting them not to buy chocolate.
