On 10th April, I spoke at the Nordic Biogas Conference in Oslo and on 11th April at the Gasnam Congress in Madrid (yes, a long-haul across Europe in one day), and at both I spoke about the need to create a level playing field for biogas technologies.
Indeed, when we talk about and ask governments for incentives to stimulate anaerobic digestion, we almost always do this with a certain sense that asking for incentives is inappropriate. Yet the petroleum industry has no such qualms.
As I said in Norway and Spain, the incentives given to petrol and gas globally are five times more than all the incentives given to all the various renewable energies — and overall, in terms of tax breaks and incentives, the petrol industry received over $4 trillion in 2018. The IMF has called this “one of the largest negative externalities ever estimated.” As 80% of our energy needs are still supplied by fossil fuels, subsidies causing climate change are more than $4 trillion a year while those supporting the fight against climate change are around $1 trillion. Isn’t that absurd?
If we look at it another way, the amount of financial resources leading countries put into supporting fossil fuel production hugely outweighs the amount of funding those same countries give to the Green Climate Fund that invests in stopping climate change.
So my appeal to all our members, readers and supporters is to lobby their Governments to end the fiscal policies that support funding to destroy our climate, and to reverse those funds into sustaining renewable energies.
I will be making these same points, and others, when we meet at the WBA 1st International Biogas Conference in on 3rd May and 4th May in Athens, Greece where a great line up of speakers from all over the world assures a really international panorama of policies, finances and operational issues. I am looking forward to a few days in that beautiful city with new and old friends.
Lastly, we are working also to ensuring the World Biogas Summit next July is a success. See here for the preliminary programme and if you want to participate/attend/sponsor or exhibit, let us know.
David Newman
President, World Biogas Association
