Two birds. One stone.
How to recoup and put to good use the billions of dollars corporations and the super-wealthy hide from governments each year while also funding the renewable energy revolution scientists and experts say is necessary—and technologically possible—to combat the increasing threat of global warming and climate change?
“The energy transformation involves not just switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy, but also challenging the corporate power and greed that has led to this crisis.”
—Dipti Bhatnagar, FOEI
That is the question answered in a new report, published Friday by Friends of the Earth International (FOEI), that argues government revenue lost through international tax havens could power half the world with 100 percent renewable energy in just 15 years.
Released just ahead of this weekend’s gathering of the G20 in China, the report—titled (pdf)—details how the nations of Latin America, Africa, and most of Asia could be powered completely by clean energy by the year 2030 if they would invest approximately $500 billion annually, a number well below the estimated $600 billion hidden by tax havens, offshore accounts, and other tax-avoidance measures each year.
The analysis should be “a wake up call for the G20 to stop talking and start acting,” says FOEI’s Sam Cossar-Gilbert, a co-author of the report. “The finance to bring about an Energy Revolution exists, it is hidden in tax havens, but the political will to drive the transformation is shockingly absent.”
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