The New Nation - Internet Edition

Rafiqul Islam Azad

G20 governments, an informal forum comprising twenty finance ministers and central bank governors, have been urged to end their 'perverse' fossil-fuel subsidies, which contribute directly to climate change, cost hundreds of billions of dollars each year, and create artificial barriers to sustainable development.

Green Economy Coalition, consisting of members from the environment, development, business, labour and consumer sectors, made the request in a letter to the G-20 Ministers of Finance ahead of their two-day meeting in Scotland ended yesterday.

Most fossil fuel and conventional energy subsidies are not only a massive diversion of public funds badly needed for other purposes, they are a serious factor in artificially suppressing clean energy and energy efficiency alternatives. Hence they bring the world closer to irreversible and catastrophic climate change, the letter said.

In the letter, the Green Economy Coalition members including the International Institute for Environment and Development, Consumers International, IUCN and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) urged them to phase out these subsidies as soon as possible.

The coalition says an end to subsidies would help stabilize the world climate by reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 10 per cent or the equivalent of Russia and Japan's combined total.

"These subsidies are a massive diversion of public funds that could be better spend in other ways," says Mark Halle, executive director of IISD-Europe. "Subsidies create false impressions about the relative cost of lower-carbon energy alternatives and this is brining us closer to irreversible climate change."

In September, G20 leaders agreed in Pittsburgh in September to phase of these subsidies over the medium term. The Green Economy Coalition welcomes that move but calls for greater urgency in implementing the phase-out and outlines ways to ensure that a reform of subsidies will protect the welfare of the poorest.

The G-20 countries, include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States of America. The European Union, which is represented by the rotating Council presidency and the European Central Bank, is the 20th member of the G-20.