The Energy Transitions Commission (ETC), a group that includes former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, has issued a report demanding that countries around the world donate $15 trillion to them to help fight climate change and boost green energy research.
In its report, ETC insists that “investments” of up to $500 billion per annum would not “pose a major macroeconomic challenge” to nations accepting the call to fund the project.
The group is made up of energy company executives, activists, investment bankers, Al Gore, and others who would financially benefit from the immense influx of funds, the Daily Caller reports.
According to the ETC website, the group’s goal is to “accelerate change towards low-carbon energy systems that enable robust economic development and limit the rise in global temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius.”
The chief avenue the group advocates to cut global warming is to force governments around the world to place an ever growing tax on carbon emissions as a means to force change in energy policy. The punishing taxes, they say, would cause the energy industry to seriously explore alternate energy sources and cut back use of fossil fuels.
It recommends that the world cut emissions to a “net zero” by the year 2050 to hold back global heating.
The group also calls for direct investment in green energy. ETC claims that the world must fund “investment in renewables and other low-carbon technologies some $6 trillion higher ($300 billion per year); while the largest required increases – of almost $9 trillion ($450 billion per year) – will be in more efficient energy saving equipment and buildings.”
ETC has focused its activism on the Paris climate agreement, which President Obama signed onto without Senate approval. The plan was to take effect in 2016, but since coming to office President Trump has put a hold on much of the country’s compliance with the agreement.
Trump has also begun considering whether or not to completely pull out of the agreement. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, has urged the president to exit the agreement and at least one climate scientist, Dr. Duane Thresher, has warned Trump not to cave in to his daughter’s “climate change madness.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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