YNTR: Fossil Fuel Subsidies Must End

You Need to Read Scientific American’s Fossil-Fuel Subsidies Must End by Geoffrey Supran, Peter Erickson, Doug Koplow, Michael Lazarus, Peter Newell, Naomi Oreskes, and Harro van Asselt.

This team of authors has a new study out in Nature estimating that cutting subsidies would spare between 500 million to 2 billion tons of CO2 per year by 2030 – roughly 1/4 of all Paris Agreement promises. The specific effects of some subsidies, such as biasing the oil industry to drill new wells with little upfront cost tend to lock in and speed emissions. Without subsidies, much of the oil produced is not even economical. Public tax money spent on subsidies literally accelerates the rate of climate damage.

Despite claims to the contrary, eliminating them would have a significant effect in addressing the climate crisis

 

When it comes to tackling the climate crisis, ending $400 billion of annual subsidies to the fossil-fuel industry worldwide seems like a no-brainer. For the past decade, world leaders have been resolving and reaffirming the need to phase them out. All of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have committed to eliminating fossil-fuel subsidies, and the vast majority of the American public supports doing so. International financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have joined the chorus, pointing to the benefits of reform. 

Bring your loved ones together this holiday season to give #GiftsToTheFuture. Each day on the way to welcoming the new year, we'll share a little something you can do to help make it (and many years that follow) better for those you love. enough.co/gifts-to-the-future

How you earn, spend, save, and invest can grow climate solutions faster. Let's work on it together?