After the EU lavished up to €15.7bn in fossil fuel subsidies on its fishing industry over the last decade, campaigners have asked the Union to redirect funds towards decarbonisation.
An analysis found that fuel tax exemptions for the fishing industry save so much money that they could pay the salaries of 20,000 fishers every year – or pay for 6,000 new energy reduction and decarbonisation projects.
Reports show that Europe’s fishing fleet emitted at least 56m tonnes of CO2 between 2010 and 2020, more than twice as much as Malta over the same period. But a true figure would be much higher, with studies indicating that practices such as bottom trawling release as much CO2 as the entire aviation industry. Even so, Europe’s fishing vessels – like its aircraft – pay no fuel taxes at present.
“Vast sums of money could be put to use for good fisheries performance,” said one of the report’s authors, Dr Laura Elsler. “The data clearly shows that by supporting the biggest emitters, fuel subsidies stand in the way of a transition to low-carbon fisheries.”
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Data also shows that the EU could generate €681m a year if its fishing fleet was taxed at 33 cents a litre, and €1.4bn if it paid the 67 cents a litre average rate charged to road transport users.
Switching tax streams to fund a decarbonisation push would help the EU “shift from unsustainable and unprofitable fishing to income-supporting and environmentally sound use of public money”, added the report co-author, Dr Maartje Oostdijk, a researcher at the University of Iceland.
However, the EU said that it remains committed to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies but an energy tax review under its Green Deal proposes only an ultra-low industry tax rate of 3.6 cents a litre for fishing vessels.
Daniel Voces de Onaíndi, the director of the Europêche fishing industry association, said EU fishers had cut their greenhouse gas emissions by half since 1990.
“We are not waiting for NGOs to initiate this path,” he said. “However, given the lack of alternative propulsion technologies or net zero carbon fuels, fuel oil taxation will not drive any transition to decarbonisation. It will only penalise the sector and even more under the [current] unprecedented fuel prices.”
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
