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Fossil fuel subsidies around the world added up to about $500 billion in 2011.. 5 times the amount of subsidies given to renewable energy!

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

HW Fisher Sustainability HW Fisher Sustainability 282 members Member Information and settingsShare group DiscussionsJobsSearch Jae Mather Follow Jae Fossil fuel subsidies around the world added up to about $500 billion in 2011.. 5 times the amount of subsidies given to renewable energy! Jae Mather Director of Sustainability HW Fisher & Company Canada's greenhouse gas stance slammed as COP 19 seeks solutions cbc.ca With the annual UN climate conference known as COP 19 underway in Warsaw, the former Irish president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, is taking issue with Canada's lack of action when it comes to curbing greenhouse gas... Like (1) Comment (1) Share Unfollow Reply Privately3 days ago

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Peter Burgess Peter Burgess Founder/CEO at TrueValueMetrics ... formerly international business and development consultant and corporate CFO

As I work on the development of Multi Dimension Impact Accounting (MDIA) it has become apparent that there are multiple issues about energy and carbon pollution that should be considered.

Clearly the use of fossil fuels to produce energy is having an impact on the planet. There is the depletion of the energy reserves which is not accounting for in GAAP accounting and there is the impact on the environment from the various pollutants that are released into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas is one of these.

Attempts have been made to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a market based system of carbon credits. I cannot see any market reality in this initiative, and I can see no basis for the pricing in this market.

I understand how the various actors in the energy industry make profit. They are selling a product that has quite low cost and a very significant value. It is energy that has enabled the industrial revolution, modern productivity and our really quite amazing standard of living. With 8 tons of carbon emissions per year, a person can have a life style associated with a $40,000 a year per capita GDP. The USA is very inefficient compared to Europe and they get about $40,000 of GDP for 16 tons per person per year.

Places like China and India are not using much energy per capita, but they will as they increase their per capita GDP. An increase in GDP of $5,000 per capita will require an increase in energy in the economy that will result in about 1 ton of extra carbon per person per year.

The idea that a carbon credit should be priced at around $10 a ton, as suggested in some analysis of the carbon market, seems to be absurd when the value emerging from the use of carbon is around $5,000 a ton.

I wrote this short paper recently, summarizing some points about the relative performance about energy use in different countries: http://www.truevaluemetrics.org/DBpdfs/BMABusiness/TVM-MDIA/TVM-MDIA-About-Carbon-131111a.pdf

I am trying to formulate my ideas about how energy should be valued in the MDIA system since it is such an important part of the enabling infrastructure for high productivity in a modern economy. Any thoughts would be welcome.

Peter Burgess ... TrueValueMetrics Multi Dimension Impact Accounting Delete 23 hours ago