quote:

The fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of $11m every minute, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. Experts said the subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis, at a time when rapid reductions in carbon emissions were urgently needed.

Explicit subsidies that cut fuel prices accounted for 8% of the total and tax breaks another 6%. The biggest factors were failing to make polluters pay for the deaths and poor health caused by air pollution (42%) and for the heatwaves and other impacts of global heating (29%).

Setting fossil fuel prices that reflect their true cost would cut global CO2 emissions by over a third, the IMF analysts said. This would be a big step towards meeting the internationally agreed 1.5C target. Keeping this target within reach is a key goal of the UN Cop26 climate summit in November.

Agreeing rules for carbon markets, which enable the proper pricing of pollution, is another Cop26 goal. “Fossil fuel price reform could not be timelier,” the IMF researchers said. The ending of fossil fuel subsidies would also prevent nearly a million deaths a year from dirty air and raise trillions of dollars for governments, they said.

“There would be enormous benefits from reform, so there’s an enormous amount at stake,” said Ian Parry, the lead author of the IMF report. “Some countries are reluctant to raise energy prices because they think it will harm the poor. But holding down fossil fuel prices is a highly inefficient way to help the poor, because most of the benefits accrue to wealthier households. It would be better to target resources towards helping poor and vulnerable people directly.”

With 50 countries committed to net zero emissions by mid-century and more than 60 carbon pricing schemes around the world, there are some encouraging signs, Parry said: “But we’re still just scratching the surface really, and there’s an awful long way to go.”

The G20 agreed in 2009 to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies and in 2016, the G7 set a deadline of 2025, but little progress has been made. In July, a report showed that the G20 countries had subsidised fossil fuels by trillions of dollars since 2015, the year the Paris climate deal was reached.

“To stabilise global temperatures we must urgently move away from fossil fuels instead of adding fuel to the fire,” said Mike Coffin, senior analyst at the thinktank Carbon Tracker. “It’s critical that governments stop propping up an industry that is in decline, and look to accelerate the low-carbon energy transition, and our future, instead.

“As host of Cop26, the UK government could play an important global leadership role by ending all subsidies for fossil fuels, as well as halting new North Sea licensing rounds,” he said. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in May that the development of new oil and gas fields must stop this year to meet climate goals.

The comprehensive IMF report found that prices were at least 50% below their true costs for 99% of coal, 52% of diesel and 47% of natural gas in 2020. Five countries were responsible for two-thirds of the subsidies: China, the US, Russia, India and Japan. Without action, subsidies will rise to $6.4tn in 2025, the IMF said.

Proper pricing for fossil fuels would cut emissions by, for example, encouraging electricity generators to switch from coal to renewable energy and making electric cars an even cheaper option for motorists. International cooperation is important, Parry said, to allay fears that countries could lose competitiveness if their fossil fuel prices were higher.

“The IMF report is a sobering reading, pointing to one of the major defects of the global economy,” said Maria Pastukhova, at the thinktank e3g. “The IEA’s net-zero roadmap projects that $5tn is necessary by 2030 to put the world on the pathway to a climate-safe world. It is maddening to realise the much-needed change could start happening now, if not for governments’ entanglement with the fossil fuels industry in so many major economies.”

“Fossil fuel subsidies have been a major stumbling block in the G20 process for years,” she said. “Now all eyes are on the G20 leaders’ summit in late October.”

Blockade posted:

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1446555752433389584

quote:

President Biden on Friday officially restored environmental protections that were rolled back by former President Trump — signing proclamations to restore the boundaries of two Utah monuments and ban commercial fishing in a Northeast marine monument.

Biden, in explaining his decision, invoked native rights, calling one of the Utah monuments, Bears Ears, “a place of healing ... a place of reverence, a sacred homeland to hundreds of generations of native peoples.”

He also brought up climate change and advocated for the climate provisions in his economic agenda.

“Nearly one in three Americans live in a community that was struck by weather disasters just in the last few months,” Biden said. “Both the Build Back Better plan and my bipartisan infrastructure agreement are going to make critical investments, significantly increasing the resilience to these devastating effects on the climate crisis.”

Trump had reduced the size of Bears Ears, designated by then-President Obama, by about 85 percent, and Grand Staircase-Escalante, designated by then-President Clinton, by nearly half.

He also decided to open up the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, off the New England coast, for commercial fishing.

The White House announced late Thursday that Biden would restore Grand Staircase-Escalante to its pre-Trump boundaries, prohibit commercial fishing in the marine monument and phase out red crab and lobster fishing.

For Bears Ears, it will return to preserving all of the land that was part of the monument before Trump, while retaining land that was added during the Trump years, to make the monument 11,200 acres larger than it was under Obama.

Rime posted:

Today's Radio Ecoshock episode actually makes a strong case that its not overpopulation which hosed us, per se, but that a certain density of population and lifestyle creates an exponential impact on the surrounding environment. Eg: Five billion people living an American lifestyle would have the effective impact of a population of fifty billion.

This was all written back in the 70's so I don't think it's 100% accurate, but there's a case to be made for sure.

SKULL.GIF posted:

https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1446562491367137280

Chard posted:

sometimes i hope hell is real

Conspiratiorist posted:

It is and you were born into it.

Rectal Death Adept posted:

Hell is pretty final. I hope earth is just a penal colony and whatever we did in a real world determines how lovely and long our lives here are

this covers past lives, religion and the simulation theory all in one. It's a torture matrix created with intelligent design and going to heaven is serving your sentence. If you try to kill yourself you get reincarnated and have another 70-90 years added to your sentence.

blatman posted:

if I remember sunday school, when you're in hell you know what sins you're atoning for. here you're just arbitrarily poo poo on

The Protagonist posted:

an ever blooming mass of self aware mortal meatforms decaying to oblivion to put on display to the terror and disgust

SKULL.GIF posted:

https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1446562491367137280

SKULL.GIF posted:

https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1446562491367137280

SKULL.GIF posted:

https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1446626237649129475

Raine posted:

fits my needs posted:

https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1446819738848534529?s=20

lol

fits my needs posted:

https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1446819738848534529?s=20

lol

quote:

When I met with Thompson and Kobaly in the desert, they told me they’re not trying to shut down the golf industry, and I’m with them on that. There’d be no Palm Springs without golf, just as there would have been no Rat Pack without Sinatra. The industry employs several thousand people, drawing hordes of snowbirds and pumping as much as $1 billion into the local economy.

fits my needs posted:

https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1446819738848534529?s=20

lol

SKULL.GIF posted:

https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1446562491367137280

SKULL.GIF posted:

https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1446626237649129475

T-Paine posted:

anyone notice how the news is not really even talking about efforts to stop, stall, or mitigate climate change but instead how to cope with it? We're hyper-hosed!

CODChimera posted:

manage to pick up any helpful tips yet?

CODChimera posted:

manage to pick up any helpful tips yet?