Sunday 20 February 2022

Humanity Financing Its Own Extinction?

Finance experts estimate that the world's governments are annually spending circa $1.8tn on subsidies, that drive the destruction of wildlife and intensify global heating. Both, if they continue, could make this planet uninhabitable for humans (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/17/world-spends-18tn-a-year-on-subsidies-that-harm-environment-study-finds-aoe). The subsidies are equivalent to 2% of global GDP. The experts based their figure on damaging subsidies for fossil fuel industries ($620bn); agriculture ($520bn); water ($320bn) and forestry ($155bn). They were unable to make an estimate for mining. This activity, however, is believed to cause billions of dollars of damage to ecosystems. Governmemts are currently rarely open to their populations about their subsidy targets. Explicit subsidies are,however, currently effectively countering both the Paris climate accord agreement, as well as draft targets, intended to reverse biodiversity loss. The subsidy specialists believe that most of the $1.8tn could easily be repurposed to limit both global heating and biodiversity loss.

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Castoffs in Chile

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