6/15/2023 0 Comments Falling hearts imvironmentThe price tag on climate damages owed by the worst 21 oil, gas and coal producers is based on each company’s operations and product-related emissions since 1988 – and on the economic situation of their home countries. This means the global fossil fuel industry is held to be to blame for at least $23.2tn of the climate-related economic losses expected over the next 25 years, or $893bn annually. The study conservatively attributes one-third of these future climate costs to the global fossil fuel industry, and one-third each to governments and consumers. Overall, global economic damages to be expected from the climate crisis are estimated at $99tn between 20 – of which fossil fuel emissions are responsible for $69.6tn, according to more than 700 climate economists. “This evidence and the underlying methodology could provide policymakers and negotiators with a concrete framework for allocating responsibility for climate-related costs to the world’s biggest historical polluters,” said Wewerinke-Singh. So far, the rich countries of the global north are regarded as having promised too little – and delivered even less – for climate adaptation efforts in poorer countries.ĭemands for reparations have been mounting as the planet’s warming climate inflicts death and destruction at an ever faster pace. This view is widely held, since the richest 1% of the world’s population is responsible for twice the amount of greenhouse gases as the world’s poorest 50%, who suffer the brunt of the harms. In the painfully slow world of international climate talks, the question of who should pay to tackle climate impacts has predominantly focused on the role and responsibility of nation states. Not only has their dirty energy wrecked the climate, they have spent millions of dollars on lobbying and misinformation to prevent climate action.” Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a climate and energy thinktank based in Kenya, said: “The case is clear for oil and gas companies to pay reparations for the harm their fossil fuels have caused. “This new report puts the numbers on the table – polluters can no longer hide from their crimes against humanity and nature.” “As increasingly devastating storms, floods and sea level rise bring misery to millions of people every day, questions around reparations have come to the fore,” said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, a group of almost 2,000 civil society groups across 130 countries. The creation of an evidence-based “polluter pays” price tag has been welcomed as an important step towards achieving climate justice for communities and countries which have contributed the least, but are losing the most as the climate breaks down. The study builds on the carbon majors database, which records the emissions of individual oil, gas and coal companies since 1988 – the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established and industry claims of scientific uncertainty about the climate crisis became untenable. “This is only the tip of the iceberg of long-term climate damages, mitigation, and adaptation costs,” said co-author Richard Heede, co-founder and director of Climate Accountability Institute. The study considers this to be a substantial yet conservative price tag, as the methodology excludes the economic value of lost lives and livelihoods, species extinction and other biodiversity loss, as well as other wellbeing components not captured in GDP. It is the first time researchers have quantified the economic burden caused by individual companies that have extracted – and continue to extract – wealth from planetheating fossil fuels.Īmid growing debate about who should bear the economic cost of the climate crisis, the paper, titled Time to Pay the Piper, presents a moral case for the carbon corporations most responsible for the climate breakdown to use some of their “tainted wealth” to compensate victims.
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