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A new report reveals that the G20 spent an average of $452 billion each year in 2013 and 2014 to support fossil fuel production, despite pledging to eliminate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies every year since 2009.
(From http://cleantechnica.com/2015/11/13/g20-nations-spending-452-billion-fossil-fuel-subisdies/)
“G20 governments are paying fossil fuel producers to undermine their own policies on climate change,” said Shelagh Whitley, of the Overseas Development Institute. “Scrapping these subsidies would rebalance energy markets and allow a level playing field for clean and efficient alternatives.”
A report published in September by the Carbon Tracker Initiative found that not only are governments around the world subsidizing coal production to the hilt, but that some of these subsidies are opening coal reserves that would not have been touched without existing subsidies, therefore heavily distorting the market.
A similar report published again in September, this time by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), revealed more than 800 spending programs and tax breaks currently used by governments throughout the 34 OECD countries, as well as 6 additional emerging G20 nations (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa) to subsidize fossil fuel production.
The absurdity of fossil fuel subsidies, beyond the obvious, was made quite clear in October by another report which showed removing fossil fuel subsidies in 20 countries would reduce national fossil fuel emissions by 11%.
Via Daniel LaLiberte, Jocelyn Stoller
Quite the opposite of a carbon tax, these fossil fuel subsidies amount to a *negative* tax because the government is giving our tax dollars to the fossil fuel companies, thus accelerating our own destruction. How insane!
How about we, at the very least, eliminate these subsidies, so we end up with a 0 tax? Or equivalently, tax the producers of fossil fuels exactly the same amount as the subsidies.
But as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels, the amount of the carbon tax should be equal to whatever it costs to sequester the emissions that result from the burning. Then we should use those tax dollars to actually sequester the carbon, and we will be carbon neutral, at least regarding future fossil fuels.
We still have to find a way to pay for restoring the environment back to the way it was before all this started, a few hundred years ago.