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The UN development chief has warned against “illogical” and “perverse” subsidies to industries estimated at $1.8tn that harm the planet, as the body pushes for a global deal to reverse the widespread destruction of nature...

Speaking to the Financial Times from Montreal, Achim Steiner, the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, said government subsidies were contributing to biodiversity loss by encouraging unsustainable farming and fishing practices.

The oil industry has often said that dilbit, a heavy crude oil from Canada’s tar sands, isn’t much different from conventional crude oil. But when it comes to paying into a federal fund used to clean up oil spills, it’s different enough to deserve a sizeable tax break.

Dilbit is exempt from the tax, because the 1980 legislation that created the tax states that “the term crude oil does not include synthetic petroleum, e.g., shale oil, liquids from coal, tar sands, or biomass…” This position was upheld in an 2011 IRS-issued Technical Advice Memorandum.

Even as Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz convened a “summit” to discuss more governmental assistance to the nation’s troubled nuclear power plants, the recent announcement by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that it is selling its northern Alabama site containing the unbuilt Bellefonte reactors should have sobered the summiteers.

Congressional critics cited Fisker’s bankruptcy filing as “yet another sad chapter” in DOE’s portfolio. “The jobs that were promised never materialized and, once again, taxpayers are on the hook for the administration’s reckless gamble,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-MI, and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy, R-PA, said last week.

The world is spending at least $1.8-trillion every year, equivalent to 2% of GDP, on subsidies that are destroying nature, new research released on Thursday has found. 

The study, titled Protecting Nature by Reforming Environmentally Harmful Subsidies: The Role of Business, was co-funded by The B Team and Business for Nature, and is the first estimate in 10 years of the total value of environmentally harmful subsidies (EHS) across key sectors including energy, agriculture, transport and forestry.

El estudio, publicado por The B Team y Business for Nature, analiza los conocidos como subsidios ambientalmente dañinos (EHS, por sus siglas en inglés), enmarcados en los programas gubernamentales de distintos países. Unas ayudas dirigidas, en definitiva, a provocar daños en el medioambiente. Desde la exención de impuestos para producir carne en el Amazonas hasta el apoyo a la extracción desmedida de agua en Oriente Medio.

Une nouvelle étude publiée ce 17 février révèle l'ampleur, au niveau mondial, de l'impact des subventions publiques dont l'application est contraire à la sauvegarde de l'environnement.

Despite calls for the reform of incentives, including subsidies, harmful to biodiversity, including under the Convention on Biological Diversity and its 2011-2020 Aichi Targets, very few countries to date have undertaken what is considered the first step in this process, namely, to identify and assess the types and magnitudes of any incentives in place at the national level which are harmful for biodiversity or the environment more broadly.