Governments Need to Redirect Funds to Protect Nature, Study Says

Governments globally are providing at least $1.8 trillion per year that’s contributing to the destruction of ecosystems, climate change and species extinction, according to research from a group called the B Team and Business for Nature.1

The report provides an estimate for what it calls “environmentally harmful subsidies” that are being made available to industries led by fossil fuel, agriculture and water companies. For example, about $640 billion of public support is going annually to fossil fuels.

“Harmful subsidies must be redirected towards protecting the climate and nature,” said Christiana Figueres, a member of the B Team and former executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change. “We have never lived on a planet with so little biodiversity.”...

• 1Though attributing The B Team and Business for Nature as the source of this information, the Bloomberg article is focused on the analysis done by Earth Track on environmentally harmful subsidies.