Dirty energy fuels inflation

Heating up: A wildfire in British Columbia, Canada, in August. The Canadian Climate Institute says, thanks to climate change, Canada no longer suffers one localised disaster every few years but rather ‘several events stacked on top of each other in a single year’. — AFP

OVER the last couple of years inflation has caused a cost-of-living crisis across large parts of the world. Some fearmongerers have used the hardship this has caused to propagate rhetoric that climate change action is unaffordable and is against the interests of ordinary people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas, are a major driver of the cost-of-living crisis, which is stretching billions of household budgets to breaking point. Prices have swung wildly, driven higher by uncertainty and conflict. In turn, this pushes up the costs of transport, food, electricity, and basic household necessities. In some heavily fossil fuel-dependent countries, household bills rose as much as US$1,000 (RM4,683) in 2022 due to fossil fuel energy costs.