Door: Dario Kenner.
“We do not have time for progress which is then reversed due to the political power of vested interests. This is why I am arguing that policies to push forward the transition must simultaneously economically weaken the polluting companies by, for examples, immediately ending all forms of fossil fuel subsidies, and with a government coordinated phase out of fossil fuel extraction and imports in the short-term.
If this doesn’t happen then these companies, and the people who run them (I call this group the polluter elite and identify them in a database) will come back again and again to defend their profits which are based on activities that produce pollution. We do not have time to wait optimistically for these companies voluntarily to end their own hugely profitable fossil fuel extraction and to replace this with renewable energy.
Inequality and the ecological crisis are intertwined. As the polluter elite and the companies they run pay lower and lower income, wealth and corporation taxes, they increase the economic resources at their disposal to pressure government – via lobbyists and donations to political parties – to maintain business as usual. There has been too much emphasis placed on individuals making the ‘green’ consumption choice when it is these companies who are shaping the consumption options of the general population to keep them restricted as much as possible to the high-carbon options on which their wealth depends.”
Aldus www.rapidtransition.org
