First of two parts
James Ellsmoor, a former contributor to Forbes magazine and founder of the Virtual Island Summit wrote: “The United States spent 10 times more on fossil fuel subsidies than education.
“The fossil fuel lobby actively has worked in many countries to protect their subsidies and avoid the imposition of carbon taxes. Doing so protects their profits.
“What the U.S. spent on these subsidies in 2015 is more than the country’s defense budget and 10 times the federal spending for education
“A new International Monetary Fund (IMF) study shows that $5.2 Trillion was spent globally on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017. The equivalent of more than 6.5% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of that year, it represented a half-Trillion dollar increase since 2015 when China ($1.4 Trillion), the United States ($649 Billion) and Russia ($551 Billion) were the largest subsidizers.
“Trump administration re-brands fossil fuels as molecules of U.S. freedom.
“Despite nations worldwide committing to a reduction in carbon emissions and implementing renewable energy through the Paris Agreement, the IMF’s findings expose how fossil fuels continue to receive huge amounts of taxpayer funding. The report explains that fossil fuels account for 85% of all global subsidies and that they remain largely attached to domestic policy. Had nations reduced subsidies in a way to create efficient fossil fuel pricing in 2015, the International Monetary Fund believes that it “would have lowered global carbon emissions by 28% and fossil fuel air pollution deaths by 46%, and increased government revenue by 3.8% of GDP.
“The study includes the negative externalities caused by fossil fuels that society has to pay for, not reflected in their actual costs. In addition to direct transfers of government money to fossil fuel companies, this includes the indirect costs of pollution, such as health-care costs and climate change adaptation. By including these numbers, the true cost of fossil fuel use to society is reflected.
“The United States is the world’s second largest subsidizer of fossil fuels, after China.
“Nations worldwide have continued to support the natural gas and petroleum industries. This is evident by the energy policies of the United States and Australia, who have continued to rely heavily on fossil fuels. Meanwhile the world’s largest subsidizer of fossil fuels, China actively has looked to follow efficient fossil fuel guidelines and continues to spend record-amounts on fossil fuels.
“As the prices associated with fossil-fuel power generation continue to increase and become harder for utility companies to justify, the price of renewable energy has plummeted. Along with the IMF report, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) released its own study looking into how the renewable energy industry has grown over a similar time period. The cost of onshore wind power generation has dropped 23% since 2010, while solar electricity saw a decrease of 73%.
“With renewable energy production becoming cheaper and fossil fuels following the opposite trend, it has left many industry experts asking why subsidies for the latter have increased. The IMF’s study identifies more than just direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industries, but the costs on society, public health and climate change that are caused by the coal, petroleum, and natural gas sectors.
“President Donald Trump personally promised to activate emergency legal authorities to keep dirty, or, economically-non-competitive coal plants from shutting down.
Continued next week