Friday, 20 September 2024

Subsidising Destruction?

Earth Track estimate that world governments spend a total of at least $2.6tn (£2tn) a year on subsidies, driving global heating and/or destroying nature. These subsidies directly work against the 2015 Paris climate agreement and Kunming-Montreal agreement to halt biodiversity loss. Governments offered subsidies to, e.g., facilitate deforestation; increase fossil fuel consumption; promote overfishing and projects (like mining) that increased water pollution. When adjuseted for inflation, the annual world total of environmentally-harmful subsidies increased by more $800bn, since a 2022 analysis (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/18/spending-subsidies-environment-deforestation-pollution-fossil-fuels-aoe). Clearly, government subsidies leading to environmental damage are increasing. There's no sign that most governments have started to recognise they can't continue to accelerate the destruction of human-friendly living conditions, in order to bring in wealth. They seem to be slow learners?

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Birder's Bonus 241

Noted a Curlew ( Numenius arquata ) on the Loughor estuary at Bynea.