WASHINGTON: The World Bank (WB) cautioned in a report on Thursday that instead of utilizing trillions of dollars in harmful and unnecessary subsidies, the same could be used to tackle climate change.
World Bank Senior Managing Director Axel van Trotsenburg said in a statement that People always remained worried about the availability of funds to fight climate issues, how they didn’t know that if we could repurpose the trillions of dollars being spent on wasteful subsidies and put these to better, greener uses for the environment, we could all serve the planet in afar better way.
Wasted Subsidies
The WB further maintained in its report that about $1.25 trillion in direct subsidies were currently given to the fishing, agricultural and fossil fuels sectors each year adding that only fossil fuel subsidies make up around six times what countries pledged to mobilize annually under the Paris Agreement for renewable energies and low-carbon development.
Besides, the report also identified that about $6 trillion in what it called “implicit subsidies” are being wasted each year.
The World Bank said implicit subsidies represent the “costs on people and the planet from pollution, road congestion, greenhouse gas emissions and the destruction of nature ultimately resulting from the subsidies.
Subsidy reform could remove distorted incentives that avoids sustainability goals but it also could unlock significant domestic financing to accelerate and facilitate sustainable development efforts, the WB report said.
