Paul Dawson

Climate change isn't just an environmental issue; it is also an economic issue that makes us all poorer.

The subsidization of fossil fuels distorts the energy market and slows down the roll-out of renewable energy.

🧵👇

Governments subsidize fossil fuels by $11 million a minute.

Analysis by the IMF shows that governments subsidized fossil fuels by $5.9 trillion in 2020, this equivalent to 6.8% of global GDP.

The IMF expect this to rise to 7.4% of GDP by 2025.

8.7 million people a year die due to air pollution due to the burning of fossil fuels.

These are preventable deaths; the technology and know-how exist today to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

Rolling out renewable energy would save lives and money.

Taxpayers will have to pay for the future damage the burning of fossil fuels does to the environment.

This year's ten most expensive weather disasters caused more than $170bn in damage and $20bn more than 2020.

They also killed at least 1,075 people and displaced 1.3 million.

Subsidies of fossil fuels distort the energy market.

The subsidies that fossil fuels receive are slowing down the development of cleaner alternatives, distorting the market.

Without government subsidies, demand for fossil fuels would decrease.

Fossil fuels should be taxed to pay for their pollution.

To make the energy market a level playing field, governments should eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and charge a levy on them to pay for the environment and social damage they create.

If you've found this thread interesting, please follow me for more threads about climate solutions.

And subscribe to my newsletter on climate solutions.

Plastics are fossil fuels.

The petrochemical industry plans to spend over $400 billion over the next 5 years to expand capacity.

The market is driving this reckless expansion.

We need governments to tell the market that this won't be profitable. 🧵👇

Only 7% of plastics are recycled.

40% end up in rivers or the ocean.

The rest are incinerated or end up in landfills.

Recently, I wrote about how we could use the tax system to create demand for waste plastic and eliminate the demand for virgin plastic.

The biggest reason we are in the climate and biodiversity crisis we're currently in is:

GDP growth

We are focused on measuring something that doesn't mean what most people think it means.

Let me explain: 🧵👇

GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product

Essentially it's a measurement of all the economic activity in a country during a given period.

Add up the total value of all the goods and services sold, and that's your GDP.

Almost every country is trying to grow their GDP

The problem is GDP doesn't measure, what's been lost!

Only what's created.

This made sense in World War 2 when we needed to build tanks and aircraft as fast as possible for our survival.

Let me explain how destruction adds to GDP growth 👇

Imagine your house gets destroyed by a hurricane, and you rebuild.

Congratulations, you've helped grow GDP.

You're worse off; you've probably spent your savings and had to borrow to pay for the rebuilding of your house.

This is what's happening with the environment.

In the last 50 years, populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles have declined globally by two thirds.

We've cut down 1 in 6 trees in the Amazon rainforest during the same period.

This destruction of nature has caused GDP to rise.

We need to ditch GDP and start measuring something that makes sense for the world we want.

Let's start by recognising that growth that destroys more than it creates is terrible.

Let me know what you think.

367 million tonnes of plastic are produced every year.

Over the past six years, enough plastic has been made to cover every square metre of Ireland with an inch of solid plastic.

Enough plastic has been made to last until the end of time. Here's how we stop making plastic 🧵👇

At the moment, it's cheaper to use virgin plastics than recycled plastics.

We need to incentivise the use of recycled plastics by making virgin plastics much more expensive.

Introducing a tax on virgin plastics products would create demand for recycled plastics.

If a manufacturer had to pay a 100% tax on the non-recycled material in their products.

Then manufacturers would be scouring the world looking for recycled materials to use in their products.

And recycling plants would fight to expand and get their hands on your plastic waste.

Let's make the market work for the environment.

We live in a market economy; whether we like it or not, the quickest way to get big things done is to harness the market.

Governments could quickly put taxes that incentivise companies to use recycled materials in place.

Are any governments doing this?

Several countries, including the UK and the EU, have packaging taxes.

These taxes are a start, but they don't go far enough—tax's need to cover all plastics and be high enough to generate a market for waste materials.

Climate change isn't just an environmental issue; it is also an economic issue that makes us all poorer.

The subsidization of fossil fuels distorts the energy market and slows down the roll-out of renewable energy.

🧵👇

Governments subsidize fossil fuels by $11 million a minute.

Analysis by the IMF shows that governments subsidized fossil fuels by $5.9 trillion in 2020, this equivalent to 6.8% of global GDP.

The IMF expect this to rise to 7.4% of GDP by 2025.

8.7 million people a year die due to air pollution due to the burning of fossil fuels.

These are preventable deaths; the technology and know-how exist today to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

Rolling out renewable energy would save lives and money.

Taxpayers will have to pay for the future damage the burning of fossil fuels does to the environment.

This year's ten most expensive weather disasters caused more than $170bn in damage and $20bn more than 2020.

They also killed at least 1,075 people and displaced 1.3 million.

Subsidies of fossil fuels distort the energy market.

The subsidies that fossil fuels receive are slowing down the development of cleaner alternatives, distorting the market.

Without government subsidies, demand for fossil fuels would decrease.

Fossil fuels should be taxed to pay for their pollution.

To make the energy market a level playing field, governments should eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and charge a levy on them to pay for the environment and social damage they create.

If you've found this thread interesting, please follow me for more threads about climate solutions.

And subscribe to my newsletter on climate solutions.

Climate change isn't just an environmental issue; it is also an economic issue that makes us all poorer.

The subsidization of fossil fuels distorts the energy market and slows down the roll-out of renewable energy.

🧵👇

Governments subsidize fossil fuels by $11 million a minute.

Analysis by the IMF shows that governments subsidized fossil fuels by $5.9 trillion in 2020, this equivalent to 6.8% of global GDP.

The IMF expect this to rise to 7.4% of GDP by 2025.

8.7 million people a year die due to air pollution due to the burning of fossil fuels.

These are preventable deaths; the technology and know-how exist today to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

Rolling out renewable energy would save lives and money.

Taxpayers will have to pay for the future damage the burning of fossil fuels does to the environment.

This year's ten most expensive weather disasters caused more than $170bn in damage and $20bn more than 2020.

They also killed at least 1,075 people and displaced 1.3 million.

Subsidies of fossil fuels distort the energy market.

The subsidies that fossil fuels receive are slowing down the development of cleaner alternatives, distorting the market.

Without government subsidies, demand for fossil fuels would decrease.

Fossil fuels should be taxed to pay for their pollution.

To make the energy market a level playing field, governments should eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and charge a levy on them to pay for the environment and social damage they create.

If you've found this thread interesting, please follow me for more threads about climate solutions.

And subscribe to my newsletter on climate solutions.

Climate change isn't just an environmental issue; it is also an economic issue that makes us all poorer.

The subsidization of fossil fuels distorts the energy market and slows down the roll-out of renewable energy.

🧵👇

Governments subsidize fossil fuels by $11 million a minute.

Analysis by the IMF shows that governments subsidized fossil fuels by $5.9 trillion in 2020, this equivalent to 6.8% of global GDP.

The IMF expect this to rise to 7.4% of GDP by 2025.

8.7 million people a year die due to air pollution due to the burning of fossil fuels.

These are preventable deaths; the technology and know-how exist today to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

Rolling out renewable energy would save lives and money.

Taxpayers will have to pay for the future damage the burning of fossil fuels does to the environment.

This year's ten most expensive weather disasters caused more than $170bn in damage and $20bn more than 2020.

They also killed at least 1,075 people and displaced 1.3 million.

Subsidies of fossil fuels distort the energy market.

The subsidies that fossil fuels receive are slowing down the development of cleaner alternatives, distorting the market.

Without government subsidies, demand for fossil fuels would decrease.

Fossil fuels should be taxed to pay for their pollution.

To make the energy market a level playing field, governments should eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and charge a levy on them to pay for the environment and social damage they create.

If you've found this thread interesting, please follow me for more threads about climate solutions.

And subscribe to my newsletter on climate solutions.

The biggest reason we are in the climate and biodiversity crisis we're currently in is:

GDP growth

We are focused on measuring something that doesn't mean what most people think it means.

Let me explain: 🧵👇

GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product

Essentially it's a measurement of all the economic activity in a country during a given period.

Add up the total value of all the goods and services sold, and that's your GDP.

Almost every country is trying to grow their GDP

The problem is GDP doesn't measure, what's been lost!

Only what's created.

This made sense in World War 2 when we needed to build tanks and aircraft as fast as possible for our survival.

Let me explain how destruction adds to GDP growth 👇

Imagine your house gets destroyed by a hurricane, and you rebuild.

Congratulations, you've helped grow GDP.

You're worse off; you've probably spent your savings and had to borrow to pay for the rebuilding of your house.

This is what's happening with the environment.

In the last 50 years, populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles have declined globally by two thirds.

We've cut down 1 in 6 trees in the Amazon rainforest during the same period.

This destruction of nature has caused GDP to rise.

We need to ditch GDP and start measuring something that makes sense for the world we want.

Let's start by recognising that growth that destroys more than it creates is terrible.

Let me know what you think.