Posted on 05/18/2015 11:39:11 AM PDT by bestintxas
Fossil fuel companies are benefiting from a global subsidy of £3.4 trillion a year, the International Monetary Fund has declared. The figure dwarfs that of government handouts for renewable energies, which amount to £77 billion a year. But closer inspection reveals the fossil fuel related sum not to be a subsidy, as it amounts to nothing more than the alleged costs to governments of dealing with fossil fuel pollution.
The IMF have insisted that their figure is “shocking,” but “extremely robust”, and are using it to lobby for an end to “subsidies” for fossil fuel companies on both health and economic grounds, the Guardian has reported.
“When the number came out at first, we thought we had better double check this!” said David Coady, head of the IMF’s fiscal affairs department. But he said the broad picture was “extremely robust”, adding: “It is the true cost associated with fossil fuel subsidies.”
His colleague Vitor Gaspar, the IMF’s head of fiscal affairs and former finance minister of Portugal agreed, saying “These estimates are shocking. Energy prices remain woefully below levels that reflect their true costs.”
According to the IMF’s report, cutting the ‘subsidies’ would reduce global emissions by 20 percent, and halve the number of deaths from outdoor pollution, saving around 1.6 million lives a year. They also envisage that making fossil fuel companies pay for pollution would be a “game changer” for governments, who could use the newly released economic resources to pay for education, health and infrastructure.
Lord Nicholas Stern, a climate economist at the London School of Economics, said: “This very important analysis shatters the myth that fossil fuels are cheap by showing just how huge their real costs are. There is no justification for these enormous subsidies for fossil fuels, which distort markets and damages economies,
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Fossil fuels subsidised by $10m every minute, says IMF
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3291035/posts
Tax deductions for expenses are considered “subsidies” by the left for hydrocarbon energy.
This “report” will just arm the little Grubers when they talk about the costs of energy.
Increasing costs for real energy will kill many more than who supposedly die from pollution.
Total net cost=cost of fuel +(plus) cost of subsidies -(minus) income tax -(minus) federal, state and local sales and excise tax
By this measure we should be using nuclear.
The majority of “subsidies” are nothing more than write-offs of business expenses.
I suppose green energy does not get Subsidies..
Yep, while the “subsidies” to “green energy” are government grants of taxpayer money, most of which disappears down the rat hole.
Depends on what your goals are.
I assert that the true goals of the energy policy of the left is to produce an economy where only the elite and their mascot supporters can use energy.
So in the interest of honesty why don’t we do away with all subsidies to everything.
Every industry big or small makes it or break it on its own merit.
No tax breaks for anything any time. No public/private partnerships. No tax write off for research and development. No loan guarantees. No tax break for moving in to a depressed area. No public utilities commission price controls.
Everybody pays the same flat tax. Everybody gets to set their price wherever the market will allow.
Don’t tell me that someone is getting a special deal unless you want me to eliminate all special deals.
I am with you.
However, bureaucrats and politicians lose their clout under your arrangement.
means it will be difficult to achieve if they cannot hand out favors in exchange of enriching themselves
Only the science ignorant could believe this statement.
There is no way to quantify the number of deaths caused by pollution. In places like Beijing or Mexico City it is likely that people with underlying diseases like asthma have their death hastened by air pollution but to attribute their deaths totally to pollution is inaccurate at best. Then to go further and to postulate based on those deaths in pollution hell holes that you can deduce pollution deaths worldwide based on that scanty data is simply scientific malpractice. You need data to make statements like that and their simply can not be any to support that statement because people do not life in plastic bubbles where you can say this person died of pollution.
They also envisage that making fossil fuel companies pay for pollution would be a “game changer” for governments, who could use the newly released economic resources to pay for education, health and infrastructure.
No what that would be is a highly regressive tax on the poor. Energy prices “would necessarily skyrocket” under this plan. Energy would be priced out of the range of the poor’s ability to pay. The poor would be condemned to jobs within their walking distance, burning cow patties for cooking, living without electric lights. In essence the poor would be returned to the Stone Age.
These people do not care about the poor or public health it is all about power.
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