SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Fossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute, IMF finds:
Fossil fuelsFossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute, IMF finds
The fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of $11m every minute, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. Experts said the subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis, at a time when rapid reductions in carbon emissions were urgently needed.
Explicit subsidies that cut fuel prices accounted for 8% of the total and tax breaks another 6%. The biggest factors were failing to make polluters pay for the deaths and poor health caused by air pollution (42%) and for the heatwaves and other impacts of global heating (29%).
Setting fossil fuel prices that reflect their true cost would cut global CO2 emissions by over a third, the IMF analysts said. This would be a big step towards meeting the internationally agreed 1.5C target. Keeping this target within reach is a key goal of the UN Cop26 climate summit in November.
Agreeing rules for carbon markets, which enable the proper pricing of pollution, is another Cop26 goal. “Fossil fuel price reform could not be timelier,” the IMF researchers said. The ending of fossil fuel subsidies would also prevent nearly a million deaths a year from dirty air and raise trillions of dollars for governments, they said.
“There would be enormous benefits from reform, so there’s an enormous amount at stake,” said Ian Parry, the lead author of the IMF report. “Some countries are reluctant to raise energy prices because they think it will harm the poor. But holding down fossil fuel prices is a highly inefficient way to help the poor, because most of the benefits accrue to wealthier households. It would be better to target resources towards helping poor and vulnerable people directly.”
[...] The G20 countries emit almost 80% of global greenhouse gases. More than 600 global companies in the We Mean Business coalition, including Unilever, Ikea, Aviva, Siemens and Volvo Cars, recently urged G20 leaders to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 09 2021, @11:59PM (2 children)
The IMF is little more than a global loan shark run by billionaires! Their loans come with many strings attached, and more than one country that received these loans then defaulted soon were labeled as 'enemy states' by certain powerful countries. They have more efft-up failures than successes.
Nobody needs to listen to anything they say.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 10 2021, @12:21AM
Agreed. The IMF are as neoliberal as you can get.
These are the sort of folks who just want to maximize profit for the few on the backs of the many.
I guess a hole was found in their plan B of escaping to New Zealand when the capitalist house of cards comes crashing down (workers rising up, saber rattling going to far and escalating to devastating wars, climate change fueled by capitalists' greed, etc. The billionaire preppers aren't too specific about what the "event" will be.).
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-rich-new-zealand-doomsday-preppers/ [bloomberg.com]
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich [newyorker.com]
https://onezero.medium.com/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1 [medium.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday October 10 2021, @11:56PM
You've missed the best part of the con. When one of these states looks like it will actually default then rich countries step in via the world bank to underwrite them and make sure the creditors don't take a real money loss. Not only are they shafting the recipients, they are giving it to the taxpayers of the rich countries too.