True – with one clarification. The time to end fossil fuel subsidies is not just now. The time was decades ago, and somehow it still hasn’t been done. We absolutely can not transition to a clean energy economy as long as we are spending money supporting fossil fuels.
The amounts at stake here are staggering:
A post-tax estimate includes direct subsidies, along with what fossil fuels cost in terms of their negative social impact, such as pollution and global warming. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) report places Canada’s post-tax subsidy to the fossil fuel industry at an astounding $43 billion US in 2015-16, which amounts to nearly one-fifth of the current federal budget. (On a global scale the IMF post-tax estimate is astronomical: $5.2 trillion US in 2016, or 6.5 per cent of global GDP.) (Bold mine).
CBC
If we want to invest that money in clean energy, I am completely supportive. If anybody who works in the fossil fuel industry wants to retain, I completely support paying for some retraining to learn how to install solar panels, or some other clean energy project. Likewise, if somebody is on a farm that grows animals for meat or dairy consumption and is losing business as trends change, I want them to be able to support their families, and would happily support redirecting some of that fossil fuel subsidy money to helping them change their farm over to something more sustainable.
I do not believe the critics, who say that others are going to continue burning fossil fuels, so we can continue, with a clear conscience, until the worst offenders stop, and then we’ll stop after that. We don’t use that logic in anything else. Imagine what it would sound like if we did… “There’s somebody in my class who isn’t studying or doing their homework. So, until they get straight A’s, I’m not doing any homework…” or “Once everybody else in the world stops smoking, then I will too, but I’m not going to be the first. If I stop, somebody else will buy that pack of cigarettes, so I might as well buy it for myself…”
We rise or fall together, as a planet, and we are each responsible for doing our best – to bring the global average up, together. Supporting the fossil fuel industry brings the average down for all of us, and change is past due. There is lots that we can do: pressure our local MP to support an end to these subsidies, sell our gas vehicles and buy electric and/or use public transit as much as possible, live in a smaller house (or apartment) that needs less energy to heat, install rooftop solar panels, reduce or eliminate animal products in our diet, Lots has already been done, and we still have a long ways to go. We’re in this together – let’s make it happen. 🙂
