Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
$7 trillion? With a “T”???
That’s insane. With how much profit this industry produces, I guess I just assumed no government would consider them eligible for subsidies.
I wonder what the true cost of gas would be if you took into account the subsidies we’re paying for through our taxes.
The number is kind of misleading. There's about $1-2T of direct subsidies, with the remainder being uncharged externalities (remediating environmental damage, etc) that's paid for later with public funds. I'm not sure how they come up with those numbers, but if they really wanted to count externalities, the number should be orders of magnitude higher, like what's the cost of actually removing that fucking carbon from the atmosphere, how do you price the inevitable mass starvation and collapse of industrial civilization, etc.
$1-2 T vs $7T honestly makes no difference in my mind. That's still an absolutely astounding amount of free money being given to billion dollar companies instead of people that actually need it
Okay, but this money basically IS going to people that need it, by way of affordable fuel prices. Ever wonder why fuel is so cheap in places like Egypt? It's because the government is subsidizing the cost and picking up a lot of the tab. What happens when people can no longer afford to get around, and food prices skyrocket because transportation is so expensive? Leaders are mostly concerned with keeping their heads attached to their bodies and they'll do anything to keep the economy growing, even if it destroys the environment and explodes the public debt. It's why climate change is such a gnarly problem, it's not just that there's a bunch of corrupt evil people preventing progress, our whole economic system needs to be overturned.
For a livable future, we're going to have to massively reduce our energy usage (like, yesterday) and figure out how to survive in a degrowth scenario, while we try to replace the entirety of our infrastructure and build out resilient systems, all without access to credit. Fun times ahead.
there is also things like tax exemptions for fossil fuels, where other energy carriers are taxed. For instance airplane kerosine is not taxed in Europe. Diesel has a tax exemption over gasoline in Germany that is worth 60 Billion annualy. These are neither direct subsidies nor externalities, but favor fossil fuels over other systems.
Everyone would buy an EV thinking they were the cheapest thing ever and gas cars would become worth nothing almost immediately as no one would be able to afford gas.
Is this capitalism?
"Free market"
“The invisible hand”
It's past time. Taxpayers have been paying for their oil exploration just for them to sell it on the world market and put those same taxpayers through inflated prices and swings. When asked if they should consider these taxpayers after their 2 year whirlwind profit binge the answer is 'Nah'.
It's time for some corporate responsibility or say bye bye to the purse strings. In this instance, the taxpayers are ALSO shareholders.
Ending oil subsidies would most likely lead to some short-term price hikes. To mitigate you could use targeted support for low-income households but that's "giving money to the poor" and unlikely to happen seeing our current situation.
There is also a question of all the jobs in the industry. Sure many people would find jobs in renewables but overall it's a complex problem.
Another thing to mind is the potential geopolitical shifts this will bring.
7 trillion in 1 year? That would be over 1000$ per taxpayer, can that be correct? Also Im assuming the number is much higher for developed countries, have I been paying thousands of dollars every year for others to pollute the environment?
yes. You have been paying with your tax dollar for others to pollute the environment, prevent the development of better systems for energy, heating and transportation and for murderous regimes like in Saudi Arabia to support terrorist organizations attacking Western countries, torture and murder journalists and commit thousands of war crimes. If you are older you have also paid for the CIA to help Fascist regimes in central America to smuggle Cocaine into the US and guns into the Middle East. You have also paid for inhumane medical experimentation on Black Americans or on college kids that later turned terrorists because of the psychological damage they received. Should i go on?
UN chief is obviously a terrorist!
Not unless you replace it with a sizable subsidy to replace my car with a decent EV.