Friday, March 29, 2013

Jeff Spross — Bombshell IMF Study: United States Is World’s Number One Fossil Fuel Subsidizer

Between directly lowered prices, tax breaks, and the failure to properly price carbon, the world subsidized fossil fuel use by over $1.9 trillion in 2011 — or eight percent of global government revenues — according to a study released this week by the International Monetary Fund.
The biggest offender was by far the United States, clocking in at $502 billion. China came in second at $279 billion, and Russia was third at $116 billion. In fact, the problem is so significant in the U.S. that the IMF figures correcting it will require new fees, levies, or taxes totaling over $500 billion a year, or more than 3 percent of the economy.
Climate Progress
Bombshell IMF Study: United States Is World’s Number One Fossil Fuel Subsidizer
Jeff Spross

As Warren Mosler says, a subsidy is a negative tax. Now we learn that it is necessary not only to eliminate the subsidies but to increase taxes and regulation (which increases costs) in order to save the home planet.

But developing an inexpensive, renewable, clean source of transportable energy is of the highest priority to avoid severe culling of the species.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Actually, just stopping the subsidy is all that is needed. Additional regulations and fees are unnecessary. "The Market" will take care of all of that. In addition, the additional tax revenues would help with the deficit ... $529B a year adds up to over $5T over ten years, the span of the deficit-slashing argument horizon, which goes quite a nice ways towards their dream of deficit reduction. No?