He’s not alone.

Shell, one of the world’s biggest oil companies, has also discovered the high cost of going green, and is quietly walking away from some of its alternative energy plans.

What these conversions mean for the wider petroleum industry we are yet to see, though it certainly sets up 2008 to be a very interesting year.

On one hand we have the darker green members of society clamouring for tighter controls on fossil fuel production, with coal and oil in their cross hairs.

On the other, we have the new dawning of reality as politicians like Kevin, and big oil companies such as Shell, ask a very simple question: “who pays”.

Kevin’s conversion was on the road to Bali and the United Nations global warming conference. It was either in Bali, or sometime before that two-week gabfest got underway, that Kevin appears to have had a sudden sanity moment, for which he is now being criticised.

Consider what happened, and how every story has two sides – even when told by the same person.

At first we saw Kevin the greenie, winning accolades and plenty of back-slapping for signing Australia up to the Kyoto agreement.

Then we had Kevin the practical, saying that even though Australia had signed Kyoto he could not yet agree to any emission-reduction targets.

Hang about!

If you can’t agree to cut emissions, why go through the nonsense of signing Kyoto in the first place – or was Slugcatcher watching nothing more than a PR stunt.

The answer, every time when it comes to politics, is stunt.

What happened in Bali was that Kevin discovered that emission-reduction targets have a cost. Just how much of a cost? Well, we don’t know. But, for a country which exports lots of coal, and is on the verge of becoming a major supplier of liquefied natural gas to the world that cost could be very high indeed – perhaps at the cost of a large slice of the coal industry, and a couple of LNG projects, such as the high-carbon bearing Gorgon development.

So, the signing ceremony descended rapidly into farce as Kevin backed down, backed away, and went back home.

Slugcatcher’s post-event advice: “Kev, what on earth were you doing signing Kyoto if you had no intention of delivering, or no idea what it meant.”

Shell, on the other hand, appears to know exactly what going green means. It means high costs and little profit.

According to a report in the weekend edition of The Guardian newspaper in Britain, Shell has sold most of its solar energy business, including operations in India and Sri Lanka.

“It was not bringing in any profit for us there, so we transferred it to another operator,” a Shell spokesman is quoted as saying.

Brutal, or practical, whatever way you look at the Shell actions they are understandable because no matter what you might say about the decision Shell is a business and has a duty to its shareholders to behave like a business.

Australia, as Kevin has demonstrated, is also being forced to think, and act, like a business.

Like Shell, Australia is looking very closely at the twin holy grails of renewable energy, and a carbon-free world, and asking that critical question: “who pays”.

To which the Slug adds: “who knows”.

Don’t we live in interesting times!