Governments across the world are spending at least $1.8 trillion every year, or about 2 percent of the global GDP, on subsidising industries that are harmful to wildlife and environment, promoting a belief that humanity is funding its own destruction, said a new study.
The new research, published by Massachusetts-based organisation Earth Track, showed that though the scale of these subsidies varied across sectors and countries, most of the government support was heading towards polluting industries such as fossil fuels, construction, mining, transport, agriculture, forestry, water and fisheries.
These include tax breaks on beef production in the Amazon and financial support for unsustainable groundwater pumping in the Middle East, the first assessment in over a decade to estimate environmentally-harmful government subsidies globally, said.
Carbon offset market
In comparison, the carbon offset market was estimated to be worth $300 million in 2018 by the Taskforce on Scaling Carbon Markets, a private sector coalition. In fact, 2018 was the most recent year for which an estimate was available. Yet the market is 6,000 times less than the $1.8 trillion governments spend on harmful subsidies.
Even if the offset market grew to $100 billion by 2030 as per the taskforce’s estimates, it would still be 18 times less than the current government subsidies, Quartz reported.
Industries getting subsidies
According to the report, the fossil fuel industry, one of the major contributors to carbon emissions, receives subsidies of $640 billion every year through tax credits and exemptions to some end users.
Agriculture, which is responsible for soil erosion, water pollution, and deforestation, receives subsidies worth $520 billion every year in the form of price floors and other exemptions.
Another $350 billion is given to unsustainable freshwater management and wastewater infrastructure every year, which ends up polluting waterways and endangering ocean and river ecosystems.
Earth Track has sourced the subsidy data from governments, non-governmental and inter-governmental organisations. The tally in the research does not take into account the cost of externalities such as the cost of air pollution and traffic congestion.
Better use
The authors of the research say a significant portion of the $1.8-trillion global spend could be repurposed to support policies that are beneficial for nature and would help in the transition to net zero.
The report calls for governments to set a target at the biodiversity COP15 gathering in China later this year to eliminate environmentally-harmful subsidies by the end of the decade.
“In a situation where, as a civilisation, we are dying from climate change and biodiversity loss, we should not be spending money on making the situation worse,” The Guardian quoted Ariel Brunner, Head of Policy for BirdLife Europe and Central Asia, as saying.
