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To: David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage, Natalie Bennett

UK Election plea: Stop subsidizing oil & gas companies

As UK taxpayers, we call on all party leaders to make an election commitment to stop fossil fuel incentives and subsidies for oil, coal, and gas companies. With oil price predicted to remain at a near record low, it's time to divert this money to new investment and new jobs in renewables instead of handing it over to the companies which are burning our planet and putting us all in danger.

Why is this important?

There are 2 very good reasons why this makes sense.

First, the UK government subsidizes oil, coal and gas by over £2 billion every year, and the companies (like Shell, BP, Centrica etc.) will ask for even more money – that’s our tax money – this year because the oil price is low, and finding it and drilling it out of the ground is costing more.

So why should we help these companies to balance their books? For the G20 countries alone – and the UK is a major member – these subsidies are a massive £59 billion ($88billion). According to The Economist, the global figure is $550 billion.

As described February 3rd in The Guardian Sustainable Business, US government support for shale gas fracking in this low oil price regime is like supporting the failing banks during the mortgage crisis that led to the crash of 2008. Will our next UK government think that our own oil and gas companies are also (just like the banks) “too big to fail”?

As The Economist put it, we have a once in a generation opportunity to “Seize the Day” and fix our energy policy, and why not.

Secondly, and closer to our hearts, our legacy to our children and grandchildren should be a sustainable world, in which they can thrive, free from fear of war and irreversible climate change. In October 2014 Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, stated that the majority of burnable fossil reserves may be considered unburnable if global temperature increases are to be limited to our internationally agreed target of 2degrees Celsius. Nature Magazine’s report in January 2015 shows real data to confirm this.

Also in October Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti warned MPs that global warming, particularly from global reliance on oil, natural gas and other fossil fuels would be a driver of global instability, resulting from conflict over resources, and from a growing number of “natural” disasters due to climate change.
Continued reliance on fossil fuels threatens our children’s legacy of peace and sustainability.

We have a golden opportunity to help secure our future; let’s stop these subsidies now.

How it will be delivered

email and social media

UK

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Updates

2016-04-20 09:11:14 +0100

25 signatures reached

2015-02-16 11:46:29 +0000

10 signatures reached