The Bill for Fossil Fuels

Introduction

In the years of development, the human being society has created many advanced technologies and gained dramatic economic growth. However, at the same time when more and more nations are becoming richer, the negative aspect of global development has been observed. Environmental concerns are the key issues that usually caused by population explosion and resources exploitation. Fossil fuel as the primary kind of resource that provides power for social advancing has led to the increase of greenhouse gas, further resulting in the global warming and other environmental problems. Nevertheless, at present individual countries still give subsidies for those fuel companies, and in my opinion this should be reconsidered as the fossil fuel subsidies may make it worse. This paper will discuss on this topic by identifying the supportive arguments.

The Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Human beings and other species only share one planet, and all the social activities and organizations should have the responsibility and obligation to protect the environment. In my opinion, individuals, fuel enterprises as well as nation governments all should pay for the bill of climate damage that caused by fossil fuels.

First of all, the fuel enterprises are the origin that produces the pollution and emission. As a result, they have to adopt ecological production technologies to prevent the spread of infection. And the wastes left by the manufacturing process have to be treated in a timely and efficient manner. During the 1970’s and 1990’s, environmental protection issues have been paid to a lot of concerns. The arguments and movements about corporations’ social responsibility became prevalent in developed countries such as Europe and the United States, including the contents of environmental protection in terms of greenhouse gas, labor and human rights, and so on. As a result, the social responsibility arguments led to the public’s concerns about the quality of our products and to care about the environment, occupational health as well as labor and social security. From that time, some green organizations and environmental protection situations have been calling for the enterprises to take on their social responsibilities and human rights to save the adverse impacts on the planet that caused by their production and economic growth. (Hueseman, 2011) As a result, under the increasing pressure and their own development needs, a lot of European and the United States multinational companies have set up necessary commitments of social responsibility codes, or using environment, occupational health and social responsibility authentication in response to the needs of different interest groups of the society.

Looking at the disasters caused by the fossil fuel, we can see that many of them were more or less caused by the neglect of fuel companies to ensure the safety procedures or strict management. Also, at the same time when these enterprises gain dramatic business growth, they leave the emission problems to the common earth we all share. Just like the quotation from the article Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come, “throughout the 21st century, climate-change impacts are projected to slow down economic growth, make poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food security, and prolong existing and create new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hot spots of hunger.” (Gillis, 2014) However, on the other hand, as everyone today lives upon the burning of fossil fuels, individuals have their own responsibility for the climate damages that led to this kind of consumption of the natural resources. Thus, people should pay for the bill. At last, governments as the headquarters and the representations of the public, have their obligations to make up the negative influences caused by their domestic production and fossil fuel consumption.

In terms of the fossil fuel subsidies, I think that the governments should reduce or cancel the subsidies for the fuel enterprises according to the practical situations in their nations. In accordance with the latest report published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on 18th May, 2015, in 2015 the global fossil fuel subsidies have arrived at $5.3 trillion after tax, equivalent to 6.5% of international GDP amount, more than the global public health expenditure. And it is shocking to notice that there are 10 million dollars paid as the subsidies to the fuel enterprises in every minute in the world.

Once there is a kind of support made for business, it means that the governments are encouraging the production or growth of the industry. Imagining that when all the fuel enterprises now are encouraged by the governments with subsidies, they are likely to ignore the social responsibilities to protect the environment and only in pursuit of economic benefits. According to the IMF’s report, a number of fuel subsidies is enormous and widespread today, both in the developed countries and developing countries of the world. The emerging Asian areas account for about half of the total amount of subsidies while advanced economies take up a quarter. In absolute terms, China is the country with the highest subsidies amount as $2.3 trillion every year, followed by the United States with $699 billion. And the third country is Russia with $335 billion, and EU has $330 billion. (Vorrath, 2015)

Eliminating the fossil fuel subsidies and establishing the price of carbon pollution have been regarded by the environmental protection organizations as the effective international measures to prevent global warming, as well as the interests of the countries themselves. The IMF urged policymakers to bring environmental costs into the pricing process of fossil fuel, in order to control its destructive effects and encourage energy conservation, further reducing the burden to the residents' health and budget cuts, prompting the governments to fund for social services as well as economic growth.

Just like the economic climate expert Nicholas Stern said in London School of Economics, "this is a crucial research (IMF) that tells the public fossil fuels, although cheap, have expensive costs. And the massive subsidies for fossil fuel are unfair, as they would disrupt the market and destroy the economy, particularly in poor countries." In fact, nations such as Egypt, Jordan, and India shortly will raise domestic fuel prices in line with international standards. (Fick, 2015)

Conclusions

From the discussion above, I suppose that the bill for fossil fuels should be taken on by all the parties involved in the consumption and production process of the natural resources, namely the fuel enterprises, the individuals, as well as the national governments. However, as the enterprises have their social responsibilities, and they are the producer of polluted emissions, they should take their obligations to carry out optimized manufacturing methods. And the fossil fuel subsidies should be reduced or even canceled in order to not encourage the businessmen to increase further production, and the new pricing method that considers environmental costs is necessary to protect the planet.

Works Cited

Gillis. J. (2014). Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come. The New York Times.

Fick. M. (2015). IMF: Sudan Must Further Cut Fuel Subsidies. The Big Story.

Vorrath. S. (2015). Fossil Fuel Subsidies Costing Global Economy $2 Trillion: IMF. New Economy.

Huesemann, M. (2011). Why Technology Won't Save Us or the Environment. Critical Science and Social Responsibility.