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Posted on 22nd July 2023 |
Show only this post Show all posts in this thread (the environment). |
This report on The Hill suggests that market forces would be sufficient to drastically reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. I disagree. The author argues that the price of fossil fuels is very heavily subsidised by governments, allowing oil, coal and gas to out-compete renewable energy, keeping the world hooked on such polluting resources, and that eliminating these subsidies would make fossil fuels uncompetitive. This is unarguable. My problems with the suggested approach to rebalancing energy markets using market forces are:
We have never paid the true cost of fossil fuels, because of the subsidies, and because of the costs due to pollution that have always been paid by others (mainly governments and the populace at large). Paying the true cost means not only removing subsidies, but also charging the industry for the costs to us all of using this source of energy. |