The world’s nations must scrap fossil fuel subsidies and put a price on emitting carbon dioxide, the president of the World Bank has warned.
Speaking at a meeting of energy and environment ministers in Germany, Jim Yong Kim, said that countries must phase out “regressive” subsidies that negatively impact the environment and prevent progress in clean technology if they want to avoid dangerous climate change.
The meeting in Berlin followed a meeting in Bonn, Germany last week, where more than 600 officials gathered to discuss the pathway to a new agreement on climate change to succeed the current Kyoto Protocol.
“We need a global response equal to the scale of the climate problem. Bold action that will make the biggest difference,” Jim Yong Kim told about 30 of the world’s energy and environment ministers gathered in Berlin for the informal talks.
Around 9 percent of the world’s population currently face some form of carbon price, but Kim urged more countries to roll out price mechanisms “whether this is through a tax on carbon, indirect taxation, regulation or the creation of a carbon market.”
Kim said that in addition, fossil fuel subsidies must be phased out if the world is to escape the worst effects of global warming, such as the devastating floods in Thailand in 2011 that cost the country $45 billion, about 13% of its GDP.
