{"id":30687,"date":"2022-02-25T00:01:19","date_gmt":"2022-02-25T04:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=30687"},"modified":"2022-02-25T20:57:20","modified_gmt":"2022-02-26T00:57:20","slug":"trillions-in-subsidies-worldwide-are-driving-environmental-collapse-instead-of-advancing-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2022\/02\/trillions-in-subsidies-worldwide-are-driving-environmental-collapse-instead-of-advancing-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Trillions in Subsidies Worldwide Are Driving Environmental Collapse Instead of Advancing Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, February 25, 2022) Together, governments of the world over are spending at least $1.8 trillion annually \u2014 2% of global gross domestic product \u2014 on subsidies that drive the destruction of ecosystems and species extinction, and exacerbate the climate crisis. This news comes from a study commissioned by The B Team<\/a> and Business for Nature<\/a>, and released in a joint brief, Financing Our Survival: Building a Nature Positive Economy through Subsidy Reform<\/em><\/a>. The Business for Nature website offers a remedy to this entropy<\/a>: \u201cWith political determination and radical public\u2013private sector collaboration, we can reform these harmful subsidies and create opportunities for an equitable, nature-positive and net-zero economy.\u201d To that end, the two organizations have issued, in their brief, calls to action to multiple sectors, including one to the governments participating in the coming UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15)<\/a>: \u201cAdopt a clear and ambitious target within the Global Biodiversity Framework . . . that commits governments to redirect, repurpose, or eliminate all environmentally harmful subsidies by 2030 and increase positive incentives to enable an equitable, net-zero, nature-positive world.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

A press release from The B Team reports<\/a> that the fossil fuel, agriculture, and water sectors are the recipients of more than 80% of all environmentally harmful subsidies (EHS) annually, thus \u201cdepleting natural resources, degrading global ecosystems, and perpetuating unsustainable levels of production and consumption, in addition to exacerbating global inequalities.\u201d Other recipients of significant subsidy include the forestry, construction, marine capture fishery, and transport sectors. Business for Nature (BFN) comments<\/a>, \u201cIn other words, public money is financing our own extinction.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The release of the brief and study is timely, given the early March UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP15 Open Ended Working Group meeting in Geneva<\/a>; the follow-on UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15)<\/a> scheduled for April 25\u2013May 8 in Kunming, China; and the next UN Climate Change Conference (COP27)<\/a> in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt (rescheduled for November 2022). The study and report hope to inform decision makers in government and business on the case for, and how to, reform these environmentally damaging subsidies.<\/p>\r\n

EHS, as the brief defines them, are government support programs that \u2014 though often established (at least ostensibly) to solve socioeconomic problems \u2014 ultimately encourage unsustainable production and\/or consumption patterns, largely because they were deployed without consideration of environmental impacts. Beyond Pesticides notes that many of the health and environmental crises we face have arisen because of such a \u201csiloed\u201d approach to problems, and that broadly, precautionary and holistic approaches can avoid<\/a> such unintended and harmful impacts; see \u201cScientific Findings Support Replacing Poisons with Precaution<\/a>\u201d (p. 9).<\/p>\r\n

The World Economic Forum puts<\/a> failure to act robustly on climate, resulting extreme weather events, and biodiversity loss as the leading threats to humanity \u2014 catalyzed in part by the enormous amounts of money given by governments to support harmful industries and practices. The research finds<\/a> that globally, the fossil fuel industry receives $640 billion in EHS annually; the agriculture sector, $520B; water, $350B; forestry, $155B; construction, $90B; transport, $85B; and marine capture fisheries, $50B. (The report also mentions that, though no metrics are available on EHS for it, illegal gold mining accounts for billions of dollars in damage each year.)<\/p>\r\n

These subsidies are significant contributors to many of the crises the world faces: the rapidly heating climate, ecosystem and biodiversity loss, air and water pollution, land degradation, and social and economic inequality. A UN Development Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization report suggests<\/a>, for example, that of the subsidies provided to farmers, nearly 90% distort prices or cause other harm, and that most fossil fuel subsidies hamper the critical and urgent need to transition to a clean energy economy globally.<\/p>\r\n

The report also<\/a> scolds governments for terrible follow-through on pledges made \u2014 and then ignored or unrealized. It notes, \u201cDuring the 2010 UN CBD Summit, 190 countries committed to phasing out or reforming subsidies harmful to biodiversity by 2020 as part of the Aichi targets. Governments missed the target, and we cannot afford for history to repeat itself.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The brief acknowledges<\/a> the extreme difficulty of reforming these subsidies: \u201cMany of [them] are so deeply embedded in our economies that attempts to define, measure and track them often struggle to be comprehensive, and progress to reform them has been slow. This is due not only to the power of vested interests, but also because both the governments and beneficiaries \u2014 including business \u2014 are unaware of the full scale of the subsidies and their impacts. Businesses often lobby for continued or increased government support that often has negative unintended environmental consequences.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Among its observations are the needs for greater public awareness and visibility of EHS, and much more transparency and disclosure about subsidies from governments and recipient businesses. In the U.S., such subsidies tend to be \u201cworked out\u201d behind semi-closed doors among legislators, federal agencies, lobbyists, and private business entities, and occasionally reported on by journalists \u2014 hardly the stuff of open, democratic, and accountable governance.<\/p>\r\n

The report\u2019s summary asserts that reform adequate to the goals of reversing \u201cnature loss\u201d by 2030, and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, will require roughly $700 billion annually \u2014 far less<\/em> than is currently spent on funding climate- and nature-destructive governmental subsidy programs. The researchers and authors, Doug Koplow and Ronald Steenblik<\/a>, say that these government efforts need to occur in parallel with (1) a realignment of all private financial flows so as to be \u201cnature-positive,\u201d and (2) increased public and private financing that can deliver innovative financial solutions to protect, restore, and conserve nature.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cNature-positive\u201d is not comprehensively defined in the brief, but these outcomes can be inferred, from the brief itself and commentary on the BFN and The B Team websites, as qualifying: emissions reductions and the transition to renewably powered economies; restoration of damaged ecosystems and initiatives to arrest further biodiversity loss and restore damaged and endangered populations; support of social and economic needs of human populations, including redress of economic and environmental inequities; and support of nature-based solutions broadly. Importantly, BFN asserts<\/a> that EHS reform must consider social and economic forces at play as it pursues \u201cthe imperative for a just and equitable transition. Reform managed sensitively means providing support for the poorest households and most vulnerable communities, such as via targeted cash transfers.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

In the authors\u2019 view, such redirection of resources from harmful subsidies toward nature-positive outcomes would:<\/p>\r\n