LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Eliminating incentives for environmental harm

To the Editor:

It should concern everyone that public policies, both in the U.S. and worldwide, continue encouraging consumer and business practices cumulatively causing monumental damages generated by our overheating climate. These foolhardy policies support massive subsidy of the fossil-fuel industry, whose products are the main source of heat-trapping emissions that amplify destructive floods, wildfires, endangered food supplies, and the decline of vital life-support systems.

According to a compelling report of the International Monetary Fund, despite vast evidence of these destructive effects of using coal, oil and methane, global fossil-subsidies have more than doubled since 2020, estimated at $7 trillion in 2022. IMF concludes that 60% of those subsidies result from undercharging for the impacts of the climate crisis and related air pollution. That means we are rewarding enormous profits being extracted by Big Oil, flagrantly subverting market-driven decisions that would result if the true cost of these fuels applied.

Moreover, IMF estimates that if such subsidies were eliminated, destructive emissions would be reduced by 43% from the projected trend-line, enabling humans to prevent the worst, most deadly effects of the climate crisis. Along with those benefits, IMF says that global economies would be boosted by 3.6% in revenues – including avoidance of overheating damages – while preventing 1.6 million air-pollution deaths annually.

If humanity is capable of acting upon its own self-interest, it is imperative that our dire predicament is confronted by eliminating these subsidies. This will require supporting expedient transition from the costly fossil-fuel economy to escape its increasingly perilous costs.

David Kyler

Saint Simons Island

David Kyler is director of the Center for a Sustainable Coast.