. And buried in the leaders’ declaration, was one old goal, a ghost of climate summits past, which casts doubt on the ability of world politicians to put politics aside in the name of emissions cuts: to “phase out and rationalize, over the medium term, inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption.”
That goal, to stop using public funds to tip the scales in favor of fossil fuels, is the no-brainer of no-brainers in fighting climate change: if we want to eliminate fossil fuels, a good first step would be to stop using taxpayer dollars to pull them out of the ground.