‘Solidarity Levies’: Foreign Officials Make Serious Push For Global Climate Taxes Ahead Of Trump’s Second Term

Foreign government officials attending the ongoing U.N. climate change summit are advocating for de facto global climate taxes to fund green ⚡Energy development in poor countries ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, according to Financial Times.

Officials from countries including France, Spain and Kenya are pushing to plan so-called “solidarity levies” on various industries at this year’s conference so that a more developed version of the scheme can be presented at next year’s get-together in Brazil, FT reported. The idea is to settle on a plan that would raise $100 billion or more annually to fund climate-related efforts in developing countries by imposing de facto taxes on the shipping and aviation industries, and possibly other sectors as well.

Past discussions on the issue of providing climate cash to poor nations have been fraught, and Trump — who pulled out of the U.N.’s Paris climate agreement in his first term and is primed to do so again — generally opposes routing money to other countries in the name of climate change, so attendees at this year’s summit are getting creative about finding sources of funding, according to FT. Besides the shipping and aviation industries, cryptocurrency trades, fossil fuel production, plastic producers, billionaires and financial transactions could possibly be subject to the “solidarity levies” scheme.