Twitterstorm Calls for End of Fossil Fuel Subsidies

The popular social media network, Twitter, has been host to a massive 24-hour campaign aimed at pressuring leaders at the Rio+20 summit to cut fossil fuel subsidies. The #EndFossilFuelSubsidies campaign started at 8am GMT yesterday and hopes to call attention to the issue so that it will be addressed at the summit.

The hashtag did manage to become a Trending Topic on Twitter by mid-morning, though it fell off eventually, despite numerous posters continuing to use the tag.

“This world has a few problems where a trillion dollars might come in handy — and we’d have a few less problems if we weren’t paying the fossil fuel industry to wreck the climate,” said Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, one of the groups organizing the Twitter campaign.

Taxpayers shouldn’t be in the business of funding fossil fuel corporations. #EndFossilFuelSubsidies

— WWF (@WWF) June 19, 2012

Imagine if I was scolding my kids not to pee on the toilet seat while paying them per-dribble. I’m just saying. #endfossilfuelsubsidies

— David Roberts (@drgrist) June 19, 2012

Fossil fuels are subsidised 12 times as much as renewable energy. Let’s turn that around! bit.ly/Ns0aeJ#EndFossilFuelSubsidies

— richardbranson (@richardbranson) June 18, 2012

Image: twitter bird via Shutterstock