FOSSIL SUBSIDIES AND THE DAMAGE DONE

Global energy subsidies fuel climate change, says IMF study

Shawn Donnan, May 18, 2015 (Financial Times)

“Governments around the world will subsidise the cost of oil, gas and coal to the tune of $5.3tn this year, fuelling pollution and climate change as they misallocate the equivalent of what is spent globally on public health…It amounts to a clarion call for higher taxes on energy and therefore higher energy prices for consumers at a time when much of the global economy remains in a fragile recovery…The $5.3tn ‘true cost’ of government energy subsidies that the IMF team arrived at is equivalent to 6.5 per cent of global economic output. It is also more than twice the $1.9tn cost calculated by IMF researchers just two years ago. At the time the fund itself called that estimate ‘staggering’…More than half the total for 2015, or $2.7tn, came from an estimate of the cost of “local pollution”, while a further $1.3tn was attributed to the price of global warming…” click here for more

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