The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is the latest organization to tell governments it time to stop fossil fuels subsidies.
Ending subsidies alone would reduce greenhouse gas emissions 10%, they say.
OECD chief Angel Gurría told Reuters, "Many governments are giving subsidies to fossil fuel production and consumption that encourage greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as they are spending on projects to promote clean energy. This is a wasteful use of scarce budget resources."
The International Energy Agency, a division of OECD, estimates developing countries spend $557 billion on fossil fuel subsidies. The world spends as much as $100 billion a year, but it’s harder to calculate for industrialized countries because subsidies are often distributed indirectly.
For example, farmers and fishermen get tax exemptions for diesel fuel use worth $8 billion a year for farmers and $1.1 billion for the fishing industry in the 31 OECD countries.
Meanwhile, speaking of greenhouse emissions, China’s increased 9% in 2009, even though global emissions dropped 1.1% because of the recession. That was the first drop in emissions since 1998.
In 2008, China surpassed the US as the world’s largest emitter. In 2009, U.S. emissions declined 6.5% to the lowest level since 1995, according to the annual Statistical Review of World Energy.
But that could change in the future because China has set targets for reducing carbon intensity while the US has not. China plans to cut the carbon dioxide produced for each unit of national income 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels.
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