Vast fossil fuel and farming subsidies causing ‘environmental havoc’

World Bank says subsidies costing as much as $23m a minute must be repurposed to fight climate crisis

Trillions of dollars of subsidies for fossil fuels, farming and fishing are causing “environmental havoc”, according to the World Bank, severely harming people and the planet.

Many countries spend more on the harmful subsidies than they do on health, education or poverty reduction, the bank says, and the subsidies are entrenched and hard to reform as the greatest beneficiaries tend to be rich and powerful.