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Field in Saxony: Extensive subsidies also flow into German agriculture
Photo: Stephan Zirwes / fStop Images / IMAGO
Subsidies are a double-edged sword: some good projects can be funded with money - but the financial injections can also achieve the exact opposite, for example if environmentally or climate-damaging companies are supported.
And according to a new analysis, the latter happens too often.
According to the Earth Track organization, the world spends more than 1.6 trillion euros (about 1.9 trillion dollars) every year on measures that either drive the extinction of flora and fauna or promote climate change.
Humanity is financing its own extinction, according to authors Doug Koplow and Ronald Steenblik.
A typical example of such misguided support is tax breaks for operators of huge farms in the Amazon region, reports the Guardian.
Large areas of forest are cleared for beef production.
Climate-damaging projects are also being promoted in some cases in the Middle East.
Here, for example, money is being invested in pumps that draw water for intensive agriculture from the already scarce groundwater reservoirs - a threat not only to the water supply of the local population, but also to the ecosystems.
The fossil industry receives a particularly large amount of money
According to the study, government support that is harmful to the climate accounts for around two percent of global gross domestic product.
However, this subsidization is directly opposed to the goals of the Paris climate protection agreement and also contradicts the goals of preserving global biodiversity.
The experts examined subsidies in various sectors, including those that promote fossil fuels, as well as agriculture, forestry, water management and fisheries.
The fossil fuel industry ($640 billion), agriculture ($520 billion), water management ($350 billion) and forestry ($155 billion) account for most of the subsidies identified, according to the report.
No estimate could be made for mining, which causes major damage to ecosystems every year.
According to the authors, both economists, a significant part of the money could be spent much more wisely and benefit climate goals, for example by helping to promote transition solutions to a zero-carbon economy.
Such investments are urgently needed, the authors write.
The report calls for global governments to agree on a target to eliminate environmentally harmful subsidies by the end of the decade.
A first step could be taken at the second part of the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China, which will take place at the end of April.
The hope is that some kind of Paris Agreement for nature will be signed there.
joe
