Just wondering, isn’t Al Jazeera backed by Qatar, a nation which would be 3rd world without petroleum production and sales? Heck, most of the Middle East nations would be, at best, 2nd world nations without fossil fuel production
It’s time to tax fossil fuels and shipped goods to fund climate resilience
(Lots of blah blah blah, leading to)
The oil, gas and coal sectors are responsible for about half of current greenhouse gas emissions, and the high-emission products of agriculture, industrial, and manufacturing sectors contribute most of the rest. All are shipped. Almost 90 percent of the $25 trillion of goods transported yearly go by sea.
Ministers will need to take the lead as the shipping industry is unlikely to levy its customers itself. Still, just a 0.2 percent levy on the value of fossil fuels and goods transported with penalties for under-recording and exemptions for goods produced with ultra-low emissions, could raise up to $50bn per year to finance the new Fund for responding to climate-related loss and damage in particularly vulnerable developing countries.
The levy cannot fall heavily on developing countries that contributed so little to global warming. Long has the precedent been set that owners and importers are responsible for the environmental risks of what is being shipped.
International mechanisms exist, and sizeable monies are raised daily – just not yet for climate-related loss and damage. Multilateral development banks should use their new lending headroom to lend more cheaply and longer term to help vulnerable countries build lasting resilience.
However, if vulnerable countries are not to sink under oceans of debt, they also need new international levies to cover loss and damage. What are we waiting for? A category five hurricane in the English Channel?
So, are you fine with more taxes/fees on fossil fuels and shipped products? How about you, Warmists? Whenever a survey asks even Warmists say they do not want to pay more. And most do not want to give up their own use of fossil fuels. And the younger ones sure do not want to give up all those packages they receive to do their stupid TikTok videos and take their Instagram photos. When does Qatar stop taking petroleum out of the ground?
The government of Qatar is an internally conflicted mess. They hosted the Hamas terrorist leadership for years, but also had the help of the Army Corps of Engineers in projects. My older daughter spent a couple of months running a bulldozer and driving dump trucks to help move a monster sand dune for some Qatari project, during President Trump’s first term. Qatar is a major oil producer, and depends on petroleum production.
However, consider: even if we went entirely away from burning petroleum distillates for energy, we’d still be using petroleum for lubricants and the base for plastics. Qatar might be positioning itself to be one of the largest oil-producing countries for that kind of use.