Posted on 06/21/2022 6:18:23 AM PDT by TigerClaws
In the UK, it now costs more than £100 to fill up a typical family car with petrol, and oil prices could rise even further. But are such high prices for fossil fuels a bad thing? While attention is focused on measures to tackle the global cost of living crisis, there has been much less focus on a very uncomfortable truth – that solving the climate crisis requires fossil fuel prices for consumers to stay high forever.
Saying such a thing may seem tone deaf. Millions of households in rich countries are facing a choice between heating and eating. In poorer countries, the situation is immeasurably worse. Rising prices for gas have dramatically increased the cost of fertiliser, while the war in Ukraine is hampering the export of its wheat.
Together these are leading to spiralling food prices globally, triggering a surge in inflation and worsening the already dire food security situation in places such as Yemen, the Horn of Africa and Madagascar. We are already witnessing widespread foot riots just like those between 2008 and 2011, when citizens around the world protested the failure of their states to deliver their most basic right – the right to eat.
To mitigate the impact of high prices, we have seen a screeching reversal of energy policies around the world. In November 2021, governments at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow pledged to tax carbon and eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. But faced with dramatic increases in the cost of fuel and electricity, those same governments have scrambled to slash taxes on energy, put in place price caps and introduce new subsidies.
Do experts have something to add to public debate?
We think so. Yet keeping global warming to under 1.5°C will require a dramatic reduction in the use of fossil fuels, starting now. The unfortunate reality is that one of the most effective ways of getting people to use less fossil fuel is to ensure they are expensive.
Of course, the best way of moving away from fossil fuels is for there to be better (and preferably cheaper) alternatives. But investment in these renewable alternatives will only happen if people are clearly switching to them, and that requires consumer prices for fossil fuels to remain high.
Fuelling riots
Of course, high fossil fuel prices are typically unpopular and can even lead to riots. Between 2005 and 2018, 41 countries had at least one riot directly associated with popular demand for fuel. In 2019 alone, there were major protests related to energy in Sudan, France, Zimbabwe, Haiti, Lebanon, Ecuador, Iraq, Chile and Iran – many of which turned into riots.
Man walks in street with burning tyres behind Riots in Haiti in 2019 caused by a fuel shortage. Jean Marc Herve Abelard / EPA Colleagues and I recently published research showing that these riots are caused by price spikes, often after fuel subsidies have been removed. These price spikes triggered fuel riots when citizens felt they had no other options for voicing their anger over government policies and actions (or when states attempted to violently suppress them from doing so).
High prices, happy citizens
Is it possible to keep fossil fuel prices high without triggering riots? The key is to keep consumer prices high by increasing fuel taxes when international oil and gas prices do eventually fall. Making this politically acceptable requires two things to happen.
First, consumers will not accept high prices if it means high profits for fossil fuel companies. Maintaining high prices for consumers must be complemented by a radical overhaul of the taxation regime facing fossil fuel companies, not just one-off windfall taxes. Those taxes would maintain high consumer prices even though the fossil fuel companies wouldn’t actually receive very much – enough to cover reasonable costs, but not enough to invest in further fossil fuel production. As the International Energy Agency has pointed out, to achieve net zero by 2050, the amount of investment needed in new oil and gas production is zero.
Second, consumers will be much more willing to accept higher prices for fossil fuels if the additional tax they pay is returned to citizens as an equal carbon grant. Alaska has done something similar, putting a share of oil revenues into a “permanent fund” which it then distributes through a cheque to every household each year (though this approach can go wrong – in Alaska politicians ended up cutting public services to maintain payments from the state fund).
Getting an annual payment, equal to the taxes imposed to keep fossil fuel prices high, would cushion the hurt from higher prices. It would also be progressive, since those who consume the most fossil fuels would pay more in tax, while those who consume little would pay less but receive the same payment from the fund and therefore end up in profit. There might also need to be additional compensation for poor groups with high fossil fuel usage, such as people on lower incomes who have to use their cars for work.
Soaring energy costs are a disaster for poor consumers worldwide. But ironically, they also provide an opportunity to shift the world from its fossil fuel addiction. If we take this chance to make fossil fuel prices permanently high, we can accelerate the transition to cleaner energy in a way that is fair for all, and avert deeper crises in the years ahead.
High prices are a good thing and needed for the transition from fossil fuels.
Added benefit is more government handouts and dependence.
Create the crisis then use it to enslave more citizens with government printed money.
“Do experts have something to add to public debate?”
No, please no. No more “experts.”
there is no such a thing as a fossil fuel
False Premise. There is no man-caused global warming therefore there is no climate crisis caused by CO2.
I guess hitting yourself in the head with a hammer is a good thing too. Right?
What we need is a transition from Left wing enviro idolatry to repentance and revival.
... oh, and using more fossil fuels.
They used that term almost 20 times including the headline.
We’ll see what the British public values more - having a functioning economy or sacrificing to Gaia.
I think I know which is going to win though it may take a while to become government policy. There are a lot of Elites to throw out of office first.
What a load of Obama Droppings
Go nuclear power.
Two solutions proposed here:
1. GOVERNMENT decides the amount of profit oil companies are allowed to keep
2. SKY HIGH TAXES on petroleum, but don’t worry, comrade. Your kind and beneficient government will send your tax payments back to you.
Yeah, that will work.
Redundant.
I have a thought. If fossil fuels are so BAD a for the “planet,” then by all means, we should use them up as fast as we can to rid the earth of it’s toxic “fossil fuel” stores. Whew! Think about how much better and purer the soil will be!!!
How is this guy making CO2 and destroying the eart?
These high gas prices is exactly what Algore wanted all along.
The only drawback is that Algore wanted to achieve these high prices through a carbon tax, with government raking in the tax money, and Algore getting rich(er) from a Carbon Credit trading scheme.
High fossil fuel prices are making food too pricey for poor people.
there is no such a thing as a fossil fuel
Just as there is no such thing as a fossil fuel addiction.
The Left worldwide has been telling us for years that they intend to make the cost of energy so high that it will become prohibitive.
In their view, America has had low energy costs for far too long, and an economically strong America has been an obstacle to tyranny for far too long, in their eyes. If they can bring this country down, they can proceed.
They have been open about it. All you have to do is actually listen to them, if you can stand it.
Of course, it is all under the aegis of “protecting the planet”, but the real goal is to redistribute wealth before cutting off the head of the golden goose (actual industry)
It has nothing to do with CO2. The battle against CO2 emissions is a proxy they think will work, because they can’t come out and say they wish to destroy industry.
That is their real goal, to destroy industry, destroy economies, and plunge the world into poverty, famine, and war.
They are succeeding brilliantly.
Totally called it. They are going all in on the “You can’t afford to live anymore, and that’s a good thing!” gaslighting.
High prices are a good thing and needed for the transition from fossil fuels.
Added benefit is more government handouts and dependence.
Create the crisis then use it to enslave more citizens with government printed money.
That’s exactly it, in a nutshell.
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