{"id":15,"date":"2015-05-16T17:16:02","date_gmt":"2015-05-16T16:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/?p=15"},"modified":"2015-07-16T17:16:35","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T16:16:35","slug":"10-a-minute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/10-a-minute\/","title":{"rendered":"$10 a minute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Would you believe it \u2013 $10m every minute<\/span> is the amount that fossil fuel companies are benefitting from global subsidies EVERY minute<\/span> of every day \u2013 equating to $5.3tn (\u00a33.4tn) a year, according to a startling new estimate by the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n

The IMF calls the revelation \u201cshocking\u201d and says the figure is an \u201cextremely robust\u201d estimate of the true cost of fossil fuels. The $5.3tn subsidy estimated for 2015 is greater than the total health spending of all the world\u2019s governments.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The vast subsidy derives largely from polluters not paying the costs imposed on governments by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These include the harm caused to local populations by air pollution as well as to people across the globe affected by the floods, droughts and storms being driven by climate change.<\/p>\n

Coal is the dirtiest fuel in terms of both local air pollution and climate-warming carbon emissions and is therefore the greatest beneficiary of the subsidies, with just over half the total. Oil, heavily used in transport, gets about a third of the subsidy and gas the rest.<\/p>\n

Lord Nicholas Stern, an eminent climate economist at the London School of Economics, said: \u201cThis very important analysis shatters the myth that fossil fuels are cheap by showing just how huge their real costs are. There is no justification for these enormous subsidies for fossil fuels, which distort markets and damages economies, particularly in poorer countries.”<\/p>\n

The IMF, one of the world\u2019s most respected financial institutions, said that ending the subsidies to fossil fuels would cut global carbon emissions by 20%. That would be a giant step towards taming global warming, an issue on which the world has made little progress to date.<\/p>\n

Ending the subsidies would also slash the number of premature deaths from outdoor air pollution by 50% \u2013 about 1.6m lives a year.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the IMF said the resources freed by ending fossil fuel subsidies could be an economic \u201cgame changer\u201d for many countries, by driving economic growth and poverty reduction through greater investment in infrastructure, health and education and also by cutting taxes that restrict growth.<\/p>\n

Another consequence would be that the need for subsidies for renewable energy \u2013 a relatively tiny $120bn a year \u2013 would also disappear, if fossil fuel prices reflected the full cost of their impacts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wow \u2013 that puts it into perspective doesn\u2019t it? Stop fossil fuel subsidies and cut global emissions by 20% AND no need for renewable subsidies! That would be a level playing field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Would you believe it \u2013 $10m every minute is the amount that fossil fuel companies are benefitting from global subsidies EVERY minute of every day \u2013 equating to $5.3tn (\u00a33.4tn) a year, according to a startling new estimate by the International Monetary Fund. The IMF calls the revelation \u201cshocking\u201d and says the figure is an …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16,"href":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eco2solar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}