Everyone knows there was a Twitterstorm today around the #endfossilfuelsubsidies.
A few background facts.
Fossil fuel subsidies in 2011 came to about $775billion. Most was for consumer subsidy in LDCs, but $100 billion went from the taxpayer straight into the pockets of oil companies.
Most go to oil and gas, though coal gets a million here and a million there.
The figure does not include the cost of externalities (health impacts &c) which amount to $120billion in the USA alone.
Fossil fuel subsidies are about 5-12 times greater than those given to the developing clean energy industry, the subsidies which the right wing press make such a song and dance about. It is reasonable to subsidise infant technologies. It is unreasonable to subsidise a hugely profitable, century old industry.
Finally, eliminating these subsidies will get us halfway towards meeting our CO2 reduction targets.
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