Transition away from fossil fuels toward new alternatives is not going smoothly. Proponents of alternatives confront a powerful industry with longstanding incentives and favorable tax policies, suggests analyst Will Hickey. Around the globe, economic struggles and immediate profits take priority over development of alternative energies. Emerging economies are in a race to catch up with the living standards of developed economies. Advanced economies – steeped in debt, with infrastructure and tax policies built around fossil fuels – resist innovation on new fuels or efforts to stem climate change and pollution. Hickey suggests that “Most world governments are so compromised with the fossil-fuel industry they cannot easily walk away without leaving their financial coffers worse off as the true costs of energy are hidden in a producer and consumer subsidy labyrinth that promotes the addiction.” Eliminating subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry, highlighting the true costs, would speed up the development of alternative energies. – YaleGlobal
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/sovereign-debts-fossil-fueled-world
