Fuel subsidies ‘must end’, says World Bank

Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank has called on world leaders to put an end to fossil fuel subsidies.

The president who spoke at the at the opening press conference of the 2015 World Bank/IMF annual meetings in Lima, Peru, said to earnestly combat climate change, fuel subsidies must go.

“Climate change affects every nation and every person, but it hits poor people the hardest. The world must cut emissions and invest in greater resilience now,” he said.

“At the Paris conference in December, countries must show real ambition. Political will for urgent action is critical. We believe there are politically credible pathways to deliver $100 billion dollars a year in climate financing for developing countries by 2020.

“Meeting this commitment will build the trust and confidence necessary for credible emissions’ reduction targets. Much of that $100 billion dollars is already flowing, with multilateral development banks providing critical financing.

“The World Bank Group stands ready to scale up its support to meet increasing demand from countries. The world must act now to put a price on carbon, end fossil fuel subsidies, increase access to renewable energy and improve efficiency, build cleaner and more liveable cities, and invest in climate-smart agriculture.”

He also spoke about the decline in the number of people living in extreme poverty, referring to it as “best story in the world”.

Kim said the impact of changing demographics (migration from poor to rich countries) around the world could be harnessed as a “golden opportunity for both poor and rich countries”.

“An influx of working-age refugees or migrants into a country with an aging population can ultimately reap benefits for everyone,” he said.

In July, the United Arab Emirates became the first oil-rich country in the Persian Gulf to remove oil subsidies.

Meanwhile, calls made on President Muhammadu Buhari to remove subsidy have yielded no results, as the president insists that there’s no good reason to do so.

“I have received many literatures on the need to remove subsidies, but much of it has no depth,” the president said in July.

Muhammad Sanusi II, the emir of Kano and former president of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), also called on the president in August to let go of oil subsidies.