The IMF has kept an account of fossil fuel subsidies over the years. Explicit amount in 2024: .73b usd, 0.6% of global gdp. Implicit 6.7 trillion, 5.8% of global gdp.
Ironically, it’s fossil fuels that need subsidies now… unless solar cells are subjected to tariffs.
nightwatch_admin@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Natanael@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
Fossil always needed subsidies. The energy taxes on fuel are not enough to cover the externalities and also the list price still doesn’t even cover the infrastructure costs
njordomir@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yep, if they actually had to clean up their messes a lot of things would have reflected their true costs and we probably would have built out the alternatives way further by now. Imagine if the motorcar had barely existed and we skipped straight to PEVs (personal electric vehicles) and distributed solar battery charging cafes.
realitista@lemmus.org 2 days ago
Why do they need them? Why not price them according to their actual cost and let them compete on the free and open market against other energy sources?
CybranM@feddit.nu 2 days ago
Whoever tried that would lose the next election unfortunately
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Wait, so you’re telling me that we, that taxpayers, have paid to build out the fossil fuel infrastructure, and these companies which get to spend our money then turn around and charge us for the products of our investments???