Antinuclear

Fossil fuel subsidies stall development of renewable energy

Renewable Energy Being Held Back by Fossil Fuel Subsidies – IEA Oil Price.com  19 Jan 12,  By Energy Digital | Tue, 01 November 2011 Recent reports show a massive increase in coal dependency caused by fossil fuel subsidies to be addressed at World Climate Summit.

According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest findings, coal and oil subsidies pose the greatest challenge to the renewable energy market. As the world’s largest exporter of coal, Australia’s carbon emissions have grown nearly 300 percent since 1970, according to the IEA’s last annual report on CO2 emissions. Worse, that percentage is regional, excluding the huge amounts of coal shipped overseas to some 20 dependent countries.

The IEA blames electricity/heat generations and transportation as the major culprits of nearly two-thirds of carbon dioxide emissions. IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2011 report,  released in early November, the agency recommends a halt on fossil fuel subsidies to reduce emissions and encourage renewable energy development.

In a recent interview with EurActiv, IEA chief economist Faith Birol said the current $409 billion equivalent of fossil fuel subsidies are only encouraging a wasteful use of energy.

Birol added that the cuts in subsidies is the biggest policy item that would help the world move towards a trajectory of 2 degrees in global warming, reducing CO2 emissions and helping renewable energies get more market share in the process.

In the current scenario, seven countries are introducing carbon pricing that would cause a 3.5 degree trajectory, which would cause “irreversible impact,” according to the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with a mass extinction rate of anywhere from 40 to 70 percent of the world’s species….. http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Renewable-Energy-Being-Held-Back-By-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-IEA.html

January 19, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized