This post is posted after reading an excellent article in "The Guardian" by Damian Carrington.
Subsidies have been calculated at current rates, in excess of over R5 trillion/p year in global support for the fossil fuel industry. That essentially has the logic of paying for your children to buy the explosives to blow themselves up!
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) has found that if governments redirected anywhere from 10 - 30% of that support, into sustainable, clean energy developments, then the transition away from planet ending dirty fuel usage would be greatly accelerated.
The fact remains that today with the meager financial support, renewable products have received, they already produce at cost competitive rates with the fossil fuel industry. The study finds that further support would enable these technologies to scale at a rate that may turn the planet away from over heating and destruction.
In the electrical generation sector there has been a strong trend away from fossil fuels, to such a degree that since 2008 renewables have seen the greatest share of new spend, beating coal and others into smaller investment portfolios. Countries that still support their fossil fuel industries, through subsidies, should remove these subsides, and this alone would make the playing field far more even and competitive.
Further to this the IISD has found through it's research that a re-allocation of just 30% of the current subsidies toward renewable generation would reduce pollution by anywhere from 11 - 18%, greatly decreasing the amount of carbon floating into the atmosphere.
