Choosing a better collapse.
…or we need to beat a $7 trillion behemoth.
A report by the International Monetary Fund indicates that the “Fossil Fuel Subsidies Surged to Record $7 Trillion” in 2022 alone, it is an unimaginable figure to any human, whereas the Oil and gas industry earned $4 trillion last year (2023), says IEA chief.
A recent study “The global costs of extreme weather that are attributable to climate change” published by Nature Magazine states that US$ 143 billion per year of the costs of extreme events is attributable to climatic change by human activities.
It’s safe to say that we’re burning fossil fuel and US$7 trillion with little or no commitment from oil companies or governments to change this horrific scenery.
In the chart below we have a compilation of registered loss of human life and property, and in 2008 alone the total loss of life and damages exceeded US$1.1 trillion dollars, while worldwide subsidies where well under US$1 trillion, according to a study from the world bank.
In 2016 phd Dr. Masami Kojima published this paper via the World Bank “Fossil Fuel Subsidy and Pricing Policies: Recent Developing Country Experience”, Dr. Kojima explains why subsidies fail to alleviate price gaps between economies.
Dr. Kojima notes that subsidies are often set in ways that make it almost impossible to dismantle.
It is clear now in 2024, that this entanglement of fossil fuel subsidies and economic loss due the human induced climate change lead us to one conclusion, that we must stop with this death spiral if we want to survive as species.
Although morally correct, this concept of global effort is hindered by xenophobia and remnants of colonial relationship between developed countries that fail to acknowledge that their current “greatness” is mostly due to their brutal relationship with their former colonies or countries that they managed to desestabilize via military coups or “democratic” bombings.
I’ve come to realize that we didn’t matter before, and we won’t matter when the climate crisis picks up pace and starts damaging countries less resilient, socially and economically speaking.
Migration will be necessary but nearly impossible by then.
The global economy is heavily reliant on the fossil fuel industry, and our dependence on oil is so ingrained that imagining a future without it seems far-fetched. But as we’ve seen, climate events are more intense and frequent, affecting densely populated areas, the resulting damage is likely to cause local economies to collapse. This, in turn, is expected to drive migration towards regions with milder climates. Wealthier nations are faced with a choice: either accept an influx of migrants in the near future or take action now to prevent such movements. Despite the urgency, efforts to avert this impending disaster are minimal.
So far the current “solution” is to have on the same budget funds for the subsidies to the oil industry, and funds to reconstruction and recovery after severe weather events, which are influenced by a strong oil industry. It is hard to comprehend that we embrace this as an immutable fact of life, as if the mere idea of breaking the spell from the oil dependency is absurd.
But the true absurd is to subside the very root cause of our demise.
Fossil fuel industries have been using their hold onto government officials, academia and news media to downplay their responsibility in this chaotic climate, often using plain lies or lobbying to kill any movement that opposes them. Shell, for instance, has a long record of abusive lobby in Nigeria and in 1995 nine climate activists that were calling out Shell’s wrongdoings were condemned to death by hanging, in 2017 a Dutch court found shell complicit in their execution.
For over 50 years, the oil industry has known that burning fossil fuels would lead to catastrophic climate change. Yet, they chose to suppress these findings to continue their exploration. Now, our planet suffers irreversible changes and losses due to the actions of a few. To add insult to injury, we pay trillions in subsidies to keep their business afloat.
There is no excuse to keep things as they are.
The gains of reducing emissions and complying with the 2°C target (RCP4.5) are US$17,4 trillion per year, according to the study “The Effects of Climate Change on GDP by Country and the Global Economic Gains From Complying With the Paris Climate Accord” by Tom Kompas, Van Ha Pham, Tuong Nhu Che.
It is absolutely no easy feat to free the global economy from this entanglement with the oil industry, but we face before us two very distinct collapses, one collapse of the Oil industry business model and the other is the Planetary capability to sustain life.
The choice is pretty clear.