Posted on 03/22/2022 7:13:50 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
ROME (Reuters) - A growing number of European countries are cutting fuel taxes to lower surging pump petrol prices. The move brings respite to motorists but environmentalists say it flies in the face of commitments to curb global warming.
Rising international oil costs, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, have driven petrol above 2 euros ($2.21) per litre in much of Europe for the first time, placing a huge burden on car owners and industry.
However, climate activists and some economists criticise the approach, saying politicians are reneging on pledges to cut fossil fuel subsidies and are responding to the fuel price emergency at the cost of the climate crisis.
"What governments are doing clearly goes in the wrong direction, they should be reducing subsidies that hurt the environment and instead they are increasing them," said Michele Governatori of the Italian climate and energy think-thank ECCO.
The petrol price cuts have seen virtually no political push-back in Italy or France, where environmentalists have little weight in parliament, but in Germany the question has exposed the first signs of tension in the three-month-old government.
The stakes for the environment are high. In its latest report last month the U.N. climate science panel warned that climate change was impacting the world far faster than scientists had anticipated.
"Denial and delay are not strategies, they are a recipe for disaster," U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said in a statement accompanying the report, which was largely overshadowed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine just four days earlier.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
“but environmentalists say it flies in the face of commitments to curb global warming”
It’s just amazing the doublespeak that leftists get away with in terms of jacking up fuel costs to appease the environuts while pretending that they’re trying to lower them to fool broader segments of the population.
To this end, John Kerry has pledged that he will neither fly nor drive in any gasoline or diesel vehicle until such time as the "disaster is diverted." /S
Environmentalists drive cars too.
And Russia is chuckling in delight at the very woke western Europeans hoisted by their own petard.
Same Hanoi John Kerry who continues to travel by gas guzzling private jets?
Getting their minds right.
Funny how the extremists are calling lower taxes “increases in subsidies.”
Maybe someone can ask John Kerry what is the short term plan to replace fossil fuel with alternative energy sources, how much is it going to cost, what’s the estimated climate results from this and what happens if this doesn’t work?
I’m tired of boring rhetoric. Either crap or get off the pot and let the adults do what they need to do.
“global warming”
It is really “global cooling”:
https://iseethics.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/the-cooling-world-newsweek-april-28-1975.pdf
The scammers never could keep their lies straight.
We’ve now discovered with certainty that climate change is a political albatross around the neck of the Democratic Party.
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