The Vice President for Sustainable Development, World Bank, Laura Tuck, who spoke at the ongoing World Circular Economic Forum in Helsinki, Finland , stated that Nigeria’s fuel subsidy is not helping the poor.
Tuck who spoke on the theme ‘Scale it up! The Next Era of the Circular Economy’, revealed that the the continuous payment of huge sums of money as subsidies on fossil fuels has worsened resources consumption and increased greenhouse emission and pollution. The World Bank official who stated that Nigeria’s fuel subsidy is not helping the poor, further warned Nigeria and other countries paying subsidies on fossil fuels to desist from it as such practice.
“Strong evidence shows that a lot of countries put subsidy on fossil fuels, and these subsidies are insufficient to support the poor. They aggravate resources consumption, pollution and greenhouse gas. Globally, subsidies on fossil fuels are huge,” she added.
Tuck said, “We cannot achieve a circular economy if we continue to make policies that give incentives to overuse of resources. Circularity means we use fewer non-renewable energy like fossil fuels and carefully manage our renewable resources like Timber and fisheries, among others.”
Highlighting some of the impacts of subsidising petroleum, she said plastic products produced from fossil fuels had become cheaper, making it unprofitable to recycle plastic waste.
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