LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Well-justified clean-energy subsidies will reduce climate harms

To the Editor:

Statements opposing government subsidies for clean energy are unfounded and misinformed — if not deliberately intended to mislead the public to support deeply-entrenched fossil-fuel interests. Such opposition could hardly be more out of step with alarming facts just reported in the National Climate Assessment.

The fifth such report in a series of scientific climate studies mandated by Congress describes menacing damages in the hundreds-of-billions annually being caused by burning fossil fuels, also warning of far worse outcomes if heat-trapping emissions are not decisively and rapidly reduced. Clearly, government subsidies for clean energy are amply justified because of this thoroughly documented scientific evidence demonstrating the imperative need for speedy transition away from fossil fuels.

Moreover, Big Oil remains the most extravagantly and continuously subsidized industry in the world. Conspicuously omitted from ill-informed statements opposing clean-energy subsidies is any acknowledgment of the billions yearly in U.S. subsidies awarded to the fossil fuel industry. Opposition to government support for clean-energy assert that such decisions should be “market-driven” while ignoring enormous subsidies supporting the destructive consequences of using fossil fuels — which remain a notorious, reckless subversion of “free markets” that is routinely ignored.

These contradictions have special relevance to Georgia’s ongoing effort to develop the state’s first-ever Climate Emissions Reduction Plan. Despite this worthy undertaking, Georgia Power is proposing approval to use still more emission-releasing natural gas to generate electricity. Meanwhile, the state’s energy policy unfairly discourages the widespread use of clean and affordable rooftop solar power, instead favoring profitable but inequitable large-scale corporate projects.

David Kyler

Saint Simons Island

David Kyler is the co-founder and director of the Center for a Sustainable Coast.