Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
More than 140 economists and policy experts on Monday published an open letter calling on the leaders of rich countries to combat the life-threatening crises of climate change and inequality through the downward redistribution of trillions of dollars in public money.
Instead of free market capitalism versus the climate, we have fossil fuel welfare versus the climate. And if we reinvested that fossil fuel welfare into social and ecological welfare, we could create a much more socially and ecologically prosperous future.
Ending subsidies to producers can play a key role in taking the fossil fuel economy off life support – or we can wait for the planet to take our civilization off life support.
We demand that fossil fuels be kept underground and that the subsidies and tax breaks that keep the fossil fuel industry viable be shifted towards a clear, grassroots-based Just Transition.
Isn’t there a contradiction between subsidising fossil fuels and meeting Paris climate targets? And, if the subsidies are removed, won’t many people suffer without cheap energy? Though recent analysis shows that the worldwide removal would not magically solve climate change, there are many reasons for reform beyond reducing emissions.
Ending the world’s fossil fuel subsidies would reduce global CO2 emissions by 0.5 to 2.2 gigatonnes (Gt) per year by 2030, a new study says. The research, published by Nature, concludes that the removal of subsidies would lead to bigger emissions reductions in oil and gas exporting regions…
Carbon Brief takes an in-depth look at the ways fossil fuel subsidies are measured – and why semantic arguments over definitions may be missing the point.
“The subsidies we give fossil energy companies are a rounding error relative to the subsidies fossil energy give to society.”
Everything is changing on energy, and yet everything remains the same. This is the message from the latest World Energy Outlook by the International Energy Agency.
Energy intensity — energy use per dollar of GDP — is the last refuge of fossil fuel proponents. Instead of measuring real improvement in energy efficiency, it hides the outsourcing of dirty, coal-based manufacturing to developing countries and changes during times of economic growth or recession, irrespective of efficiency.
