[HN Gopher] Fossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute...
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Fossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute, IMF finds
Author : vegetablepotpie
Score : 46 points
Date : 2021-10-07 16:47 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| indrax wrote:
| This is the relevant paper.
|
| https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Sti...
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| > _The fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of $11m every
| minute, according to analysis by the International Monetary
| Fund._
|
| OK but what kind of subsidies? I hear about ending "subsidies for
| oil" but it's never clear to me whether these are some type of
| explicit oil industry subsidy, or if they're just using standard
| tax deductions that every other large international business
| uses.
| missedthecue wrote:
| " _The biggest factors were failing to make polluters pay for
| the deaths and poor health caused by air pollution (42%) and
| for the heatwaves and other impacts of global heating (29%)._ "
| GaryTang wrote:
| Does any one else get the feeling that many environmental pieces
| are just Chinese propaganda used for economic warfare?
| CyanBird wrote:
| I would highly recommend you to read on the history of the cold
| War and mccarthyism specifically, because if you are trying to
| link such detached topics on abuse ways you are headed straight
| into it
| CyanBird wrote:
| On obtuse ways*
|
| Autocorrect
|
| But anyhow, IMF and World Bank are both themselves integral
| creations of BrettonWoods to ensure global USD supremacy, so
| to claim that reporting on the damage of externalized global
| warming is itself a "Chinese disinfo operation" is..... Quite
| the reach, not even two years ago we had the IMF work with
| the coup government of Bolivia to set up onerous loans to the
| country at disparate interest rates to quite literally
| shackle them into the infamous IMF debt cycle, so it can't
| even be argued that IMF is to this day an hegemonic
| institution
| bequanna wrote:
| This is more than a little naive.
|
| Think pragmatically and put yourself in the position of the
| Russians, Chinese. We are their opponent and there are no
| rules.
|
| It is well documented that the Soviets were trying with great
| effort to influence US policy, politicians, and even citizens
| directly.
|
| On related note, it is also well known that oil companies
| actively financed the anti-nuclear movement and pushed solar.
| This was incredibly successful in stopping new plants and
| increasing fissile fuel use.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| In what way could an article about fuel subsidies be construed
| as Chinese propaganda?
| bequanna wrote:
| The parent comment is saying that propaganda could be used as
| a weapon to demonize industries in an attempt to force
| regulation that would handicap US companies and make them
| less competitive.
|
| In this scenario, the US has painful and ultimately pointless
| carbon taxes that give us the warm fuzzies but China
| continues building coal plants.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Well, fossil works and is known. Green will NOT WORK because of
| thermodynamics, inherent features and losses and the economic
| impacts of that. The only way is if EVERYONE accepts moving back
| to an 18th century quality of life. That's what the "Great Reset"
| actually will be if it's allowed to happen.
| legitster wrote:
| >Explicit subsidies that cut fuel prices accounted for 8% of the
| total and tax breaks another 6%. The biggest factors were failing
| to make polluters pay for the deaths and poor health caused by
| air pollution (42%) and for the heatwaves and other impacts of
| global heating (29%).
|
| I really don't like this "literally every bad thing we can put a
| price on is a subsidy" logic.
| marcusverus wrote:
| It really is an egregious lie. By this definition of subsidy,
| the government is also subsidizing your dog, since no-one is
| being taxed to pay for its methane emissions.
|
| Redefining words to make a point is just a fancy way of lying.
| If they cared about the truth, the media would treat these
| liars the same as they treat the Dan Rathers of the world.
|
| But when you think about it, the media derive a lot of their
| influence from their ability to freely navigate the space
| between 'telling the whole truth' and 'not lying'. So I suppose
| it's not surprising that they're happy to have the bar for
| 'truth' set as low as possible.
| relativ575 wrote:
| Is this now the fashion to blame the media by default?
| Subsidy is the exact term the study uses:
|
| > This paper provides a comprehensive global, regional, and
| country-level update of: (i) efficient fossil fuel prices to
| reflect their full private and social costs; and (ii)
| subsidies implied by mispricing fuels
|
| https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Sti.
| ..
|
| While it's a stretch to lump together all of the costs as
| subsidies -- maybe neglected externalities is the better term
| -- it is still important to call them out. Renewable or EV
| websites are often inundated with calls for ending subsidies
| for renewable energy, ignorant or not. They always
| conveniently forget the externalities of fossil-based energy,
| in no small part because of the lack of quantifiable cost.
| After all, if it isn't priced in, then the society has to
| shoulder it.
| marcusverus wrote:
| > Subsidy is the exact term the study uses
|
| I'm saying that they intentionally misused the word to
| confuse readers.
|
| The word subsidy has a specific and well known definition.
| A subsidy is a sum of money paid to an
| individual/organization/industry to achieve some goal. Or
| it is a tax break which is given specifically to an
| individual/organization/industry. The study uses subsidy to
| mean A _hypothetical_ tax break given on a _nonexistant_
| tax, imagined by the authors, which would make companies
| pay for their externalities. Not a subsidy.
|
| Imagine we levied a tax to right the wrongs of
| misinformation. Under this tax, the guardian would be
| paying billions, _billions_ in damages for articles like
| this! But they 're not paying my imaginary taxes. So the
| goverment is subsidizing the Guardian to the tune of
| billions of dollars. It's a friggin' fairy tale.
|
| Further, the difference between the terms 'subsidy' and
| 'externality' is not trivial nor accidental. It's the
| difference between "your government is funneling money into
| industry x" (this message carries personal implications for
| the reader, making it likely to result in an emotional
| response) and "industry x harms the environment" (which is
| an old song and unlikely to generate an emotional response
| or reader engagement).
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > Is this now the fashion to blame the media by default?
| Subsidy is the exact term the study uses:
|
| Do you think the Guardian would run the honest version?
| Would it make the front page of HN?
|
| Does it matter if we blame the chicken or the egg? The
| effect should more people like GP exposing that this isn't
| real. Not that someone has to cover for the poor
| defenseless media that seemingly can never be held
| accountable for their part.
| tim333 wrote:
| I think they might do more good saying fossil fuels have
| unpriced externalities of $11m/minute. Otherwise
| economically literate folk look at the headline and say
| not true while the others won't understand what they are
| on about.
|
| The misuse of language and accounting is annoying because
| if prevents clear discussion and analysis of the problems
| in an area where that is important.
| missedthecue wrote:
| _" Explicit subsidies that cut fuel prices accounted for 8% of
| the total and tax breaks another 6%. The biggest factors were
| failing to make polluters pay for the deaths and poor health
| caused by air pollution (42%) and for the heatwaves and other
| impacts of global heating (29%)."_
|
| They estimate that globally, almost $6 trillion in subsidies are
| given to the fossil fuel industry. But aren't they
| miscalculating?
|
| Venezuela for instance subsidizes their fuel at 2.5 cents per
| gallon. Who is the recipient of the subsidy in this case? Their
| state oil company or the citizens buying cheaper fuel?
|
| Similarly with pollution. If one drives an F150 around town
| instead of a Prius, who is the recipient of the "cost of global
| warming" subsidy? It seems like it's the end user in both cases,
| not the drilling company.
| legitster wrote:
| Yeah, normally subsidies benefit both parties equally at the
| expense of tax-payers. But something like 75% of the world's
| oil production comes from state-run enterprises, the benefits
| go entirely to the consumer.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| If someone calls EV or Wind or Solar policies subsidies, people
| say "yes, its the right thing to do and makes economic sense".
| No one says "the money goes to the person buying the EV so its
| not an EV industry subsidy!"
|
| But for some reason, people want to tie their logic up into
| pretzels to deny that oil companies are getting subsidies. Why?
| missedthecue wrote:
| I don't say that though.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Here is a seemingly quite better treatment of energy subsidies:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-22/fossil-fu...
|
| About half comes from state's funding state owned oil companies
| which is sort of questionable if it counts at all as a subsidy, a
| big chunk involves petro--states making their local energy very
| cheap, presumably to support their population who are otherwise
| very poor, Saudi Arabia is apparently the biggest in this regard.
|
| Other subsides include energy assistance around the world for the
| poor. People might shout about ending oil subsidies, but are they
| really intending to include the programs that help poor people
| heat their homes in the winter?
|
| It seems like there is a big gap between people wanting to end
| oil subsidies and actually knowing what is happening they want
| stopped, and as the above article shows, people are willing to
| believe arbitrary nonsense and call it a subsidy.
|
| But how can you make a difference if you don't even understand
| what you're fighting against?
| legitster wrote:
| While politically popular, these "discounts for locals" schemes
| don't make much sense as poverty fighting measures. By their
| very nature, wealthy people will benefit more than the poor (a
| bigger home will consume more heat than a smaller home).
|
| It would always be better to sell the commodity at market rate
| and just use the money to fund actual targeted poverty
| programs.
| thebean11 wrote:
| Wealthy people also spend a much smaller percentage of their
| income on energy, so it depends how you look at it. A poor
| person is much more likely to notice energy costs going up
| despite using less energy.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The broad programs are usually only in countries where the
| entire country is extremely poor: Venezuela isn't going to
| benefit from "targeted" programs, they have a GDP problem.
|
| In the more developed world there are programs like "free or
| reduced gas bills if your income is below the poverty line"
| etc.
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