At both the G20 and Rio+20 meetings this week, ending fossil-fuel subsidies is on the table. While 135 countries have already voiced their support for fossil-fuel-subsidy reform, very little action has backed up those words.
Oil Change International has released a new study this week that evaluates the progress that G20 nations have made toward phasing out these subsidies. The results are not pretty. No subsidies have been eliminated since the pledge was taken in 2009, and even more disturbingly, G20 countries are simply changing the definition of what subsidies are in order to claim progress.
In short, the G20 is cooking the books and cooking the planet. As the graphic below shows, there is likely more than $1 trilion annually provided for the production and consumption of oil, gas, and coal. That's a lot of money to be wasting and hiding, and it could be put to far better use for education, hunger, poverty, renewable energy, and many many other uses.
It's time for governments to own up to the truth and come clean on the billions being thrown away to a dirty industry. Check out more below (click to enlarge):
Learn more about fossil-fuel subsidies on Oil Change International's site, and join us and a large number of partners as we storm Twitter to call for governments to #endfossilfuelsubsidies.
Follow Stephen Kretzmann on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kretzmann
Worldwide subsidies at the level of $3000 per American? Or $140 per human?
Or three times the total value of the oil produced?
That seems a bit too high, especially since 2/3 of it is on subsidies to the third world.
First, the author talks about subsidies to all fossil fuels, not just crude oil. And refined oil is much more expensive.
Second, the world's total oil production was 83575 thousand bareel of oil daily according to BP Statistical Review of World Energy. This is to be multiplied by 365 days and $100 per barrel = $ 3 trillion, three times more than the value of the estimate, not 1/3!