Saudi Arabia and Venezuela – two big oil-producing nations – are accused of holding up progress on this issue, which will be high on the agenda of leaders who attend the Rio Earth summit later this week and the upcoming G20 in Mexico.

The true story about fossil fuel subsidies:

Venezuela and the middle eastern petrol-dictatorships subsidise petrol at the pump, selling it for far less than they could get for it on the open market. This is a true per energy unit subsidy.

The rest of the world taxes petrol at the pump, causing the price to be higher than its cost on the open market.

Some western nations give tax breaks to fossil fuel companies for failed exploration for new resources, and for research and development on fuel efficiency. There is no at the pump subsidy.

Per unit of energy, the renewable energy is subsidised by the tax payer, because the government forces energy suppliers to purchase this energy at 10x the market rate, and uses the tax payer money to reimburse the energy company.

So if you really want to end research and development for fuel efficiency, by all means join the twitterstorm.

If you expect Venezuela and the petrol-dictatorships to care about a twitterstorm, you're mental.

Three small points:

i) It's not that "activists" are "hailing" it a success, it is a success.
It's a day long "hurricane" on twitter.

ii) One high profile Stephen Fry tweet of support helps, but nowhere near enough to trend No1 all day.

iii) All over the world ordinary people are demanding an end to fossil fuel subsidies - that's the story.

yes. there needs to be more high profile twits.

Two small points:

i) all over the world ordinary people are among the main beneficiaries of the tax rebates, discounts,... that help make energy and its many benefits more affordable and more available for them.

ii) activists (lobbyists, actually) are wrongly calling these subsidies.

That's the story (and the facts).

A few background facts. Fossil fuel subsidies in 2011 came to about $775billion. Most was for consumer subsidy in LDCs, but $100 billion went from the taxpayer straight into the pockets of oil companies.

Most go to oil and gas, though coal gets a million here and a million there.

The figure does not include the cost of externalities (health impacts &c) which amount to $120billion in the USA alone.

Fossil fuel subsidies are about 5-6 times greater than those given to the developing clean energy industry, the subsidies which the right wing press make such a song and dance about. It is reasonable to subsidise infant technologies. It is unreasonable to subsidise a hugely profitable, century old industry.

Finally, eliminating these subsidies will get us halfway towards meeting our CO2 reduction targets.

Sorry, that should have read "Fossil fuel subsidies are up to 12 times greater than those given to the developing clean energy industry.

A few background facts. Fossil fuel subsidies in 2011 came to about $775billion. Most was for consumer subsidy in LDCs, but $100 billion went from the taxpayer straight into the pockets of oil companies.

Here's a list of the top 15 countries who subsidise fossil fuels per energy unit, which is 81% of that $775billion.

Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, China, Egypt, Venezuela, UAE, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Algeria, Mexico, Thailand, Ukraine

The 100 billion you claim is "going into the pockets of oil companies" is in fact going toward research and development of fuel efficiencies, which is exactly what Rio is trying to achieve.

Source of the information above.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2012/jan/18/fossil-fuel-subsidy

Twitter and it's fight against propaganda!

Simple - since you are so worried about ordinary people - remove the subsidies/tax rebates, whatever you want to call them, then go further and put a tax on every unit of carbon sold, then take all this money together, divide it by the number of people in the country in question and give every one of them that amount of cash IN THEIR POCKET.

Reduces Carbon Emissions
Stimulates all of the non-carbon emitting economy by putting cash into the hands of consumers.

The 100 billion you claim is "going into the pockets of oil companies" is in fact going toward research and development of fuel efficiencies,

It should be going it to low carbon energy not fossil fuels. It really is very simple you know, try to keep up.

It should be going it to low carbon energy not fossil fuels. It really is very simple you know, try to keep up.

That depends on your goals.

If you want to address climate change, using that money to make fossil fuels more efficient will save huge amounts of Co2 now. Spending it on renewables may not yield any savings.

If you want to line the pockets of big renewables companies, then you should indeed give them 100billion dollars.

Activists hail success of Twitter storm against fossil fuel subsidies

Great: so when are the subsidies ending? Oh, what? They're not? It wasn't that sort of success. I see.

...put a tax on every unit of carbon sold, then take all this money together, divide it by the number of people in the country in question and give every one of them that amount of cash IN THEIR POCKET.

The problem you will find is that any extra cash from the payouts will be spent on things that require the use of fossil fuels.

Lets say it amounts to $100 per person. The average person goes out and spends it on food, consumer goods, entertainment, or whatever you like.

All those things required fossil fuels. It doesn't matter who spends the money, it will go to the same use.

In the end, "tax and dividend" is just random wealth redistribution.

If you want to address climate change, using that money to make fossil fuels more efficient will save huge amounts of Co2 now. Spending it on renewables may not yield any savings

No matter how hard you spin it that seems ludicrously unlikely.

The problem you will find is that any extra cash from the payouts will be spent on things that require the use of fossil fuels.

Are you trying to prove yourself to be economically illiterate? Due to the taxation on carbon, market forces will shift money towards non-carbon products. That is inevitable. And obvious. But you can't see it? You have to be joking!

If you want to address climate change, using that money to make fossil fuels more efficient will save huge amounts of Co2 now. Spending it on renewables may not yield any savings

No matter how hard you spin it that seems ludicrously unlikely.

Math not Spin.

Most energy comes from fossil fuel use, improving efficiency has a drastic effect.

Very little energy comes from renewables. Improving them has very little effect.

The problem you will find is that any extra cash from the payouts will be spent on things that require the use of fossil fuels.

Are you trying to prove yourself to be economically illiterate? Due to the taxation on carbon, market forces will shift money towards non-carbon products. That is inevitable. And obvious. But you can't see it? You have to be joking!

There's practically no such thing as a non-carbon product.

Every product is either created using fossil fuel energy, transported using fossil fuel energy, and /or its materials were extracted with fossil fuel energy.

Unless you are talking about locally grown food or crafts, the money still gets spent on fossil fuels.

Quiz:: What You Don't Know About Energy Subsidies? http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/energy/great-energy-challenge/energy-subsidies-quiz/ you will notice ONLY 8% of fuel subsidies in 2010 and a whole lot more

only 8% of fuel subsidies go to the poor. (I'm tired, one of those tweeting to #EndFossilFuelSubsidies) They dont need our tax money, if they want subsidies they can ask the rich to increase their taxation.

Quiz:: What You Don't Know About Energy Subsidies? http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/energy/great-energy-challenge/energy-subsidies-quiz/ you will notice ONLY 8% of fuel subsidies went to the poor in 2010, and a whole lot more

At last, I think I got it. : )

This twitter storm is an inmense succes if only because of the awareness it raises globaly!

So many people just didn't know about it en now they do! And that in only one day!

It

The blitz, which has been supported by Stephen Fry, Robert Redford, actor Mark Ruffalo

Bah.

I'm not blindly supporting a cause like this unless A-list celebs like Noel Edmonds fly in to Brazil to support it, in person, showing proper committment. Like all those members of Greenpeace.

I bet the powers that be, are not happy with the awereness this twitterstorm has raised!

Of course they will not say, ohh we saw a twitterstorm lets give it all back....

It takes a few more steps, of wich this storm is an important one.

It takes a few more steps, of wich this storm is an important one.

The Twitterati will have forgotten all about it and moved on to something else by next week.

Does anyone else think it's really ironic that Guardian Environment has several articles reporting on demands for removal of subsidies for fossil fuels while simultaneously carrying a prominent advert for Statoil, proclaiming the virtues of Norwegian gas?

i dont think they have cleaned up the Exxon Valdiz oil spill yet.
profit before EVERYTHING.

I am curious. If the Twitter Storm for anti fossil fuel subsidies was only # 2, what was #1 and by how wide a margin does the rest of the world think Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga or Katy Perry is more important than Big Bad Oil?

Unless you are talking about locally grown food or crafts, the money still gets spent on fossil fuels.

The whole point is to change that. Dividing the cash from a blanket carbon tax cash and putting back into the pockets of hard working families instead of enriching polluting big oil companies means that the lower carbon alternatives are always favoured.

You talk as if there is no alternative to fossil energy but nuclear and constantly cheapening wind and solar are real alternatives. Wind and solar in particular just need a little help as they are nascent technologies within the next 1-2 decades they will be as cheap as fossil fuels which are only becoming more expensive as they get rarer.

Most energy comes from fossil fuel use, improving efficiency has a drastic effect.

Very little energy comes from renewables. Improving them has very little effect.

You have a tin ear and keep repeating yourself.

The point is to increase the amount of energy from renewables that are ALREADY much less polluting than fossil fuels. It's not complicated.

Good thing you specified who Mark Ruffalo is one would never have known otherwise. Great to see the usual experts trawled out for these occasions, geriatric actors, unknown celebs seeking to raise their profile with the intellectuals of the Big Brother sort who are sooooo concerned about the environment because they have been told they should be.

The problem is that many people do not understand the subsidies that the IEA are talking about. These subsidies are for consumption at the pump allowing the market price for the consumer to drop below that of the cost price. The government is making it cheaper for the citizen to use the fuel and indeed waste the fuel. However it has nothing to do with the UK as these subsidies do no exist over here.

Indeed to quote the IEA

The transport sector in emerging economies drives all the net oil demand growth. Non-OECD car markets expand substantially; car sales there exceed those in the OECD by 2020, and the
global passenger car fleet is set to double

What we see is that the drive of non-OECD countries to become like those in the west relies on fossil fuel usage (I highlighted oil in this case). Renewables in their current form cannot replace petroleum. So asking them to end these subsidies in support for renewables when these cannot replace on of their key economic corner stones, is idiotic. I agree that these countries should end their subsidies (they could use the money for healthcare) but I am not going to dictate their policy for them. In fact, neither is the IEA.

* Fossil Fuel Subsidies: A Closer Look at Tax Breaks, Special Accounting, and Societal Costs (PDF)

For example...

"The Capital Gains Treatment of Royalties on Coal Credit, introduced in §177(j) and §117(k) of the Revenue Act of 1951 (P.L. 82-183), allows owners of coal mining rights to reclassify income traditionally subject to the income tax as having been received under royalty contracts, thereby allowing owners to pay a reduced tax rate."

The figure does not include the cost of externalities (health impacts &c) which amount to $120billion in the USA alone.

$500 Billion True Cost of Coal: New Harvard Study

You talk as if there is no alternative to fossil energy but nuclear and constantly cheapening wind and solar are real alternatives.

Japan is switching its nukes back on; the developing world's construction of fossil fuel plants vastly outstrips its use of renewables; Germany is largely replacing nukes with coal and gas.

It's only in the green fantasy world that wind and solar are "real" alternatives.

For example...

You've linked to a report by a pro-renewables lobby group. What the hell do you expect them to say?

So debunk them. I'll get popcorn.

Germany is largely replacing nukes with coal and gas....It's only in the green fantasy world that wind and solar are "real" alternatives.

Oh, that'd be why Germany's committed to 35% renewables by 2020, and 80% by 2050, then?

These subsidies are for consumption at the pump allowing the market price for the consumer to drop below that of the cost price. The government is making it cheaper for the citizen to use the fuel and indeed waste the fuel.

This is a major issue and a very good point. The price of fuel for motor transportation in a lot of LDC's is heavily subsidised and in many places has created unsustainable development. A good case in point right now is Egypt who are desperately running after IMF cash to finance the very subsidies the IMF say they must stop to qualify for finance! A country in the throws of a revolution on the brink of civil disorder will not countenance suddenly making unemployed 1,000.000 Cairo taxi drivers who can only afford to drive around the streets all day looking for business because of the ludicrously low gas prices. But there HAS to be a plan in place to address this situation precisley for these reasons - the country cannot afford these subsidies and as fuel prices go up and up the situation only becomes more difficult. Of course, if all the money over the years had been inested in other more long-term projects perhaps things would be different - that's why these issues need looking at so seriously.

But to suggest that the solution to this problem is just to keep on pouring returnless money into the tanks of taxi drivers when Egypt could be investing in, say, solar energy, is obviously senseless. However that's what will happen and when the subsidies finally have to end last year in Tahrir is going to look like a tea party compared to what 1,000,000 angry Cairo taxi drivers are going to stir up....

But anyway.......in the developed world we need a flat carbon tax that is collected across the board, divided up and given to every man woman and child in the country to use market forces to move towards nuclear, wind, solar etc. as applicable.

The LDC's need help/encouragement big time getting over their specific problems. Cheap electric cars and massive solar projects in N Africa and ME can't come too quickly - the relatively short range of electric cars is not such a big problem for taxis and in crowded polluted cities like Cairo with sunlight and space to spare in the surrounding areas there are alternatives....

Japan is switching its nukes back on

Good. I'm pro nuclear and I wish Germany would increase their nuclear generation not decrease it. As for solar and wind you know very well they are rapidly heading towards parity - solar in particular looks very promising in the sunny world and you shilling for a few more years of hugely reckless fossil fuel free-for-all whilst climate science clearly tells us that we are lining up huge problems for the rapidly arriving future is just the sort of short sighted behaviour our superior human minds are supposed to be able to avoid.

Japan is switching its nukes back on

FT: Japan unveils boost for clean energy
"The Japanese government has unveiled a plan to boost investment in clean energy sources, in a move that paves the way for the country to lower its dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear power and build up its fledgling renewable energy market. "

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Oh, that'd be why Germany's committed to 35% renewables by 2020, and 80% by 2050, then?

(a) That's 35% renewable electricity, not energy.

(b) The renewables target is not made up solely of wind and solar (at present, roughly half of Germany's renewable capacity for electricity generation is made up of sources other than wind and solar).

(c) "Committed to" is not a synonym for "achieved".

As for solar and wind you know very well they are rapidly heading towards parity

If so, why so much bleating when the subsidy regime is cut?

Conservative Home: Contrary to popular opinion, wind energy cuts electricity bills and boosts economic growth

"As a Conservative and a developer of wind and solar farms, I wish I could sell my goods in an open and transparent UK electricity market. In this market, my fossil and nuclear competitors would bear the full cost of their environmental impact, would receive no tax breaks to prospect for their resource and would be required to pay to insure and to decommission their plant. In this market, the electricity price reduction effect of my technology would be passed on in full to the consumer. But I can’t sell in such a market, because it doesn’t exist. I have to sell into the market that exists in the here and now."

You've linked to a report by a pro-renewables lobby group. What the hell do you expect them to say?

By the way, that's a genuine ad hominem.

By the way, that's a genuine ad hominem.

If you like, but I expect you to apply the same standards to partisan sources on all sides of the debate. (That means the next time someone posts a link to WUWT or Heartland or whatever, it won't be sufficient for you just to sneer.)

wind and solar are real alternatives.

bollocks

But to suggest that the solution to this problem is just to keep on pouring returnless money into the tanks of taxi drivers when Egypt could be investing in, say, solar energy, is obviously senseless

But the problem is that solar energy will not solve the problem of the taxi drivers (to use your example) as the technology is not there yet to replace the ICE on that scale. When you look at logistics the problem is evidently clear that we will be tied into petroleum for quite some time. Thus eliminating the subsidies the IEA are talking about (primarily subsidies at the pump) would not help drastically as renewables cannot fill the logistics need or even the transport needs of a vast majority (remember I said that they should be eliminated). That is why the thrust of this campaign is idiotic. Hybrids are currently the go to for alternative energy cars but even they are not much of an improvement on a traditional ICE.

If you like, but I expect you to apply the same standards to partisan sources on all sides of the debate. (That means the next time someone posts a link to WUWT or Heartland or whatever, it won't be sufficient for you just to sneer.)

Sneer at WTFUWT? Moi? And I thought I also pointed out stuff that debunked Comical Tony and his Rabid Circus of Tee-Parteers?

Jonathan Watts,

Please could you explain why Venezuela is referred to as a country against the subsidies to oil companies. Do you mean that Venezuela, as a public policy, subsidies the petrol to a rock botton level for the consume of the general population? Venezuela do not subsidies oil companies, on the contrary, Venezuelan oil company, PDVSA, subsidies the Venezuelan economy in a important extents. Even more, pay for essential programs that deliver a greater good to the people.

Should the subsidies to the oil companies be cut, agreed, but Venezuela is not an example of that kind of subsidies. Check the facts.