We have another vague agreement from the 20 most powerful countries. They have given us a broad goal with no deadline and no real way to reach it. Even this seems difficult to hammer out for the “world’s biggest economies”.
(Reuters) — The world’s largest economies will agree to phase out subsidies on oil and other carbon dioxide-spewing fossils fuels over the “medium term” in an effort to fight global warming, a G20 document said.
The draft G20 statement showed countries such as Russia, India, and China will back a move to reduce and eliminate most financial support that keeps fuel prices artificially low, albeit without a timetable for the cuts. Such subsidies hike greenhouse gas emissions by boosting consumer demand.
The G20 will also intensify efforts to reach a U.N. deal on climate change later this year, said the draft communique obtained by Reuters at a G20 summit in Pittsburgh. The leaders will ask their finance ministers to come up with a range of options for climate finance — payments from rich countries to poor countries dealing with global warming — at their next meeting.
The final version of the communique [was] issued by the leaders at the end of their two-day meeting on Friday.
Governments worldwide subsidize fuel, and the G20 called on other nations to join the phase-out. Some estimates put annual worldwide spending on such subsidies at around $300 billion.
Eliminating such subsidies would reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming by 10 percent in 2050, the draft said, citing data from the International Energy Agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The statement from the G20, which groups major rich and emerging economies, said energy and finance ministers would develop timeframes and strategies for implementing the phase-out and report back to leaders at the next G20 summit.
Environmental activists welcomed the move, though they expressed disappointed in the lack of a firm timetable and the failure to make progress on financing for poor countries.
“Removing fossil fuel subsidies could be an important step toward cutting CO2 emissions,” said David Waskow, climate adviser for development group Oxfam International.
“But it should not be allowed to distract from the failure of rich countries to offer poor countries the help they need.”
How much money do American taxpayers give away to the ultra-rich, polluting, earth-destroying fossil fuel industry? A lot.
And U.S. Subsidies for Fossil Fuels Are More Than Twice Those for Renewables
The vast majority of U.S. federal subsidies for fossil fuels and renewable energy from 2002-2008 supported fossil energy sources that emit high levels of greenhouse gases when used as fuel, according to research released today [ September 18 2009] by the Environmental Law Institute in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Applying a conservative approach, the respected organizations found that the U.S. government provided substantially larger subsidies to fossil fuels than to renewable fuels.
Subsidies to fossil fuels — a mature, developed industry that has enjoyed government support for many years — totaled approximately $72 billion over the study period, representing a direct cost to taxpayers.
Over the same period, subsidies for renewable fuels — a relatively young and developing industry — totaled $29 billion, the study found. What’s more, of the $29 billion, more than half — $16.8 billion — went toward corn-based ethanol, the climate effects of which are hotly disputed.
At the same time, President Barack Obama has “talked down the importance of sealing a global deal on climate change before the end of the year, world leaders said yesterday.”
Read more of that baffling story here. Obviously, Obama is on his own timetable, obviously at odds with the timetable of the earth’s climate itself. Could things be looking worse for our hopes that action would be done this year, aggressively, on climate change? Our governments seem determined to continue to support with taxpayer money more bad ideas (watch the money for natural gas continue) while not adequately funding what we need to be moving towards very quickly — renewable fuels.
If the science is correct, than anything that is likely to be agreed upon will be too little too late to avoid what the scenarios generally describe as moderate impacts. If you have kids and/or grandchildren, now would be a good time to start thinking about the kind of world they will be living in. It ain’t gonna be pretty, but it doesn’t have to be a calamity, at least for the prepared.