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The chief executives of Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Eni, Total, Statoil and the BG Group made the appeal ahead of a new round of U.N. climate talks Monday in Bonn, Germany.
In a letter to U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius the companies said governments should introduce carbon pricing and eventually link up their carbon markets.
While that involves a cost for fossil-fuel companies, they said "carbon pricing policy frameworks" will help provide a roadmap for energy companies and investors.
Governments are expected to sign a global climate agreement in Paris in December.
The Associated Press
June 1st 2015
Comments
'While that involves a cost for fossil-fuel companies, they said "carbon pricing policy frameworks" will help provide a roadmap for energy companies and investors."
???
How is that a cost for fossil-fuel companies? At least if carbon taxes are being levied as they are in Canada?
Fuel companies add any taxes they have to pay into costs recaptured from small householders, who *also* pay the tax on the "user" end. When the first round of carbon taxes hit, the "cost of gas" component of the gas bill nearly doubled. Apparently by the time the tax is really "effective," despite having no direct impact on shareholders' or executives' incomes, will see my winter heating bill increase around 300%.
This is money that is purportedly being "reimbursed" to Canadian householders? Sure thing, Jack. Just like the GST "benefits" covered the GST we paid on things that had never been subject to federal sales taxes, and indeed, things that had been exempt from provincial sales taxes.
Of course, in the face of any kind of measures at all, the industry prefers costs they can pass on to end-users.
Meanwhile, electricity mid-day here (except during lockdown) is now 20.8 cents/kwh, so it's hardly as though anyone can afford to heat with electricity, which is also to an extent produced from fossil fuels ... and which also delivers profits to shareholders.
We need all energy generation to be a public good, folks. Until then, we'll be paying for it through government subsidies, through profits for a multitude of corporations (most now international), and excessive "compensation" to their executives.
And we'll be fed even more bafflegab about how good that all is for us, as we wind up "experiencing" homelessness. I hate the use of distancing language. People aren't "experiencing" homelessness: that's what city politicians do when they sleep out on the street in high-quality sleeping bags, bundled up in the warmest clothing money can buy, and they do it on stomachs that haven't slept empty for a long, long time, if ever.
People who have no home to go to *are* *homeless*: they're not "experiencing homelessness."