The world's largest economies continue to pour billions into funding coal and oil power plants, in direct contradiction with the commitments they have made on climate.
To abandon fossil fuels, the first step is to end fiscal incentives for non-renewable energy sources. This, in a nutshell, is what emerged from the closing stages of COP22. And yet, while with one hand some of the world's leading CO2 producers commit to reducing their climate impact by signing (non-binding) agreements, with the other they not only continue to subsidise their own coal and gas industries, but also "export" the fossil fuel economic model to developing countries.
Over the past nine years, countries such as China, Japan, Germany, South Korea and the United States have invested 76 billion dollars to promote coal development in other countries — some of which sit among the G20 — such as Vietnam, South Africa, Australia and Indonesia. This is according to the report "Trappola carbonio: come l'International Coal Finance mina l'accordo di Parigi", published by the Natural Resources Defense Council in collaboration with Oil Change International on the occasion of COP22 in Morocco.
Between 2007 and 2015, China and Japan alone invested 46 billion dollars in the coal supply chain and intend to invest a further 18 billion in the coming years.
But it is not only a matter of overseas investments. Canada, for example, directed 3.3 billion dollars in subsidies to its own coal and gas companies in 2015. This is stated in the report "The elephant in the room", published by the organisation Environmental Defence Canada together with other partners. While it is true that Canada will introduce (no earlier than 2020) a carbon tax — that is, a tax on emissions — it is equally true that the tax will be paid by citizens. For every tonne of CO2 emitted by Canada, consumers will find themselves paying between 18 and 30 dollars — depending on the province. But if Canada continues to subsidise coal and gas companies, these will be incentivised to keep producing energy from such sources. "It's as if the tobacco taxes paid by taxpayers were given to tobacco companies to produce new cigarettes. None of this makes any sense," the report reads.
In the United States too, while votes were being cast for the election of the new president, an attempt was made to introduce a carbon tax: the state of Washington would have been the first federal state to adopt such a measure. Needless to say, the bill did not pass.
Italy holds the record for support to fossil fuel sources: we are talking about 14.8 billion that the state subsidises every year, through direct and indirect aid, to the production and consumption of oil, coal and gas. This amounts to 0.63 per cent of GDP, against a European average of 0.17 per cent (and 0.20 per cent in the United States) — more than what is granted to renewable energy sources.
The charge comes from Legambiente's dossier "Stop sussidi alle fonti fossili", also presented in Marrakesh. Noting that the costs arising from pollution are not factored into the report, the environmental association demonstrates that simply turning off this funding tap would be enough to reduce CO2 emissions by 750 million tonnes (5.8% of global emissions by 2020), contributing to the achievement of half of the climate target needed to keep the rise in global temperature within 2 degrees. The only reprimand came from the European Commission, which rapped our knuckles because at the time the government had not yet introduced the "polluter pays" principle. That was 2015.
