The number is kind of misleading. There’s about $1-2T of direct subsidies, with the remainder being uncharged externalities (remediating environmental damage, etc) that’s paid for later with public funds. I’m not sure how they come up with those numbers, but if they really wanted to count externalities, the number should be orders of magnitude higher, like what’s the cost of actually removing that fucking carbon from the atmosphere, how do you price the inevitable mass starvation and collapse of industrial civilization, etc.
there is also things like tax exemptions for fossil fuels, where other energy carriers are taxed. For instance airplane kerosine is not taxed in Europe. Diesel has a tax exemption over gasoline in Germany that is worth 60 Billion annualy. These are neither direct subsidies nor externalities, but favor fossil fuels over other systems.
$7 trillion? With a “T”???
That’s insane. With how much profit this industry produces, I guess I just assumed no government would consider them eligible for subsidies.
I wonder what the true cost of gas would be if you took into account the subsidies we’re paying for through our taxes.
The number is kind of misleading. There’s about $1-2T of direct subsidies, with the remainder being uncharged externalities (remediating environmental damage, etc) that’s paid for later with public funds. I’m not sure how they come up with those numbers, but if they really wanted to count externalities, the number should be orders of magnitude higher, like what’s the cost of actually removing that fucking carbon from the atmosphere, how do you price the inevitable mass starvation and collapse of industrial civilization, etc.
there is also things like tax exemptions for fossil fuels, where other energy carriers are taxed. For instance airplane kerosine is not taxed in Europe. Diesel has a tax exemption over gasoline in Germany that is worth 60 Billion annualy. These are neither direct subsidies nor externalities, but favor fossil fuels over other systems.