Greece to Boost Climate Disaster Fund With Hospitality Tax Hike - Bloomberg
Greece to Boost Climate Disaster Fund With Hospitality Tax Hike - Bloomberg
Greece to Boost Climate Disaster Fund With Hospitality Tax Hike
A burnt forest in the National Park of Dadia. Photographer: Konstantinos Tsakalidis/Bloomberg
Greece plans to double its budget backstop for natural disasters linked to climate change by increasing a levy on accommodations, mostly affecting luxury hotel stays, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.
“Special reserves will increase from €300 million ($320 million) to €600 million,” Mitsotakis said in an annual speech on economic priorities in Thessaloniki on Saturday, following extreme weather that hit Greece with its biggest forest fires and floods in history during a two-week period this summer.
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Greece to Boost Climate Disaster Fund With Hospitality Tax Hike
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”