Dear Editor,
Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados has an essay in this weeks’ TIME magazine in a special report section featuring six viewpoints from around the world on the topic of climate justice. PM Mottley’s essay is published under the title, “Tax Oil to Pay for Damage” as she pleads the case that those who caused the current nexus of climate damage while reaping massive amounts of wealth in the process, should be the ones primarily responsible for remedying the resulting mess; not those who didn’t cause the problem but who now are bearing the brunt of the damages caused by global warming and climate change.
One of her suggestions is “to put a levy on the production of fossil fuels”. I remember that in December 1994, at my home in Midland, Texas, then President Dr. Cheddi Jagan, speaking after dinner to a large group of Midlanders, including many in the Oil and Gas industry, offered the same proposal in his quest for “A New Global Human Order”. The adoring audience, which he held in the cusp of his hands until then, immediately went stone cold. I am curious how Ms. Mottley’s incarnation of taxing other people’s produce will play in the front yard of the world’s newest and fastest fossil fuel producer.
Sincerely,
Dr. Tulsi Dyal Singh.