> Also, there's no such thing as EU states, like there's US states. In Europe, there's member countries.
The use of “states” for dependent, in some cases also notionally sovereign, subdivisions of certain independent sovereignties notwithstanding, “states” for the independent sovereign subjects of international law in the Westphalian order has been standard usage since before there was a U.S.
There are E.U. states, but they aren't like U.S. states, because the E.U. is an international union, not a state itself.
A quick search through the source document linked from the article [0] says they indeed account for petroleum etc. taxes.
Also, while EU “member states” have much more power than US states (including the ability to leave), they are “states” in the general sense of the word[1].
Subsidies are a measure of how distorted the market is. If you exempt something from sales tax that would otherwise apply it’s a subsidy because it’s cheaper relative to the rest of the market.
For example, excluding the trucking industry from fuel taxes is a fossil fuel subsidy because fuel taxes are used to pay for roads. The net effect is an increase in the number of trucks vs rail as rail is forced to pay for it’s own infrastructure while trucking would not be. The same applies to EV’s vs ICE as EV’s avoid paying for roads.
What a mix of the rich, the poor, and the indebted. There really is no common thread with which to stitch those nations together, not ideologically nor even geographically. I.e., there is no obvious single problem to solve which would affect these nations' governing bodies' attitudes towards energy policy.
The problem to solve is the degree to which existing industries are able to affect government policy either by simple corruption or by a coalition of business and employee short term interests. It's not the only one of course but it is a big one.
A lot of the accounting in these things saying fossil fuels are subsidised in countries where they are not are pretty sketchy. It tends to be either that there is say a large tax on oil company profits but they can offset their costs in calculating profits and that gets called a subsidy. Or they figure the pollution costs are more than the tax levied and call that a subsidy. Straight subsidies of the government handing you money to burn stuff are pretty rare.
The underlying report is from 2020 [1] and seems to include data up to 2018.
I've been searching for Sweden in it. There are references to CO2/diesel tax reductions for mining, maritime and rail sectors. Glancing at Figure 2-9, it looks like "infrastructure" and "production" are the two blocks, so I think that confirms it.
I think the net number in OPs article is based on Figure 2-9 and 2-13, but that's just a guess.
Even more surprising is the green subsidy champion Czechia. With massive coal mines and coal powerplants owned by politically well-connected individuals. I think it's because early on the subsidies for solar panels were stupidly good (as in guaranteed that investment in it pays off in ~7 years and the rest is gravy)
It's more complicated than that. Their rulling elites don't want their country to be the next Kazahstan or Armenia. Energy pricing is a very sensitive subject and a powder keg. There was a poll in my EU country which is on that list. >50% of respondents said that the energy crisis is the fault of 1. energy companies and distributors 2. the state. People will take it to the streets the next thing after the state stops these social subsidies. The EU doesn't have a solution other than slowly forcing these contries onto a free energy market and to dominish these subsidies. I can't think of any other solution either.
In the end, what matters is not so much the subsidies, but how countries will reach the 55% reduction of green house gasses in 2030.
Of course subsidies have an effect on that. But these effect varies from country to country and from sector to sector.
Of course, calling out countries now that they have high subsidies on fossil fuels will help kicking those countries later if they fail to meet the 2030 objectives.
It's probably going to be a carrot and stick issue in the EU. States have to do X to get EU funds or else trigger an infridgement procedure, get fined and get cut off from EU funds. At least that's how it works now. They're also careful to steadily increase the price of gas or electricity with a few percent every year since nobody wants mobs breaking storefronts and setting things on fire. Coal will probably be the first to go if everything goes smoothly and Poland is in a lot of trouble if they don't build at least 3 or 4 nuclear reactors.
I don't understand why anyone is subsidising fossil-fuel. In a scarcity market, the subsidies don't make fuel cheaper for consumers; they are just taken as windfall profits by producers.
I suppose these subsidies exist because politicians happen to have non-exec directorships with producer companies.
> I suppose these subsidies exist because politicians happen to have non-exec directorships with producer companies.
Or put differently: An industry that has been very large and very profitable over a century, captures government policy for their sector. (1) This will happen unless measures are taken to prevent it.
Sometimes it is for historical reasons, sometimes it is out of necessity.
For example, Belgium has an aging nuclear fleet that provides 40% of the electricity supply. 5 of the 7 GW of capacity has to be closed down in the coming years. All political parties, the operator and the nuclear safety watchdog organization are in agreement on those 5 GW, but there is still debate on the remaining 2 GW. Regardless of what happens to the 2 GW, the gap in energy supply of the 5 GW needs to be filled, and this needs to happen very quickly.
There is already a planned tripling of renewables, but it will not get done in time, and it will not come even close to covering the gap. The market also wasn't addressing the coming shortfall due to regulatory uncertainty. Previous governments didn't take steps to replace the nuclear fleet, and now Belgium has run out of time and the current government has just a few years to replace the 5 or 7 GW of nuclear capacity. The only solution that was found to keep the lights on was to offer subsidies to the market for building new capacity, and most of the offers received were for gas plants, because in practice that's the only thing that can be built in time. So in practice Belgium now is forced to subsidize fossil fuels or risk the lights going out.
Ironically the gas subsidies will create windfall profits for the wind operators, because prices are set based on the most expensive energy source in the mix, and even with the subsidies that will be gas. So the gas plants will run with a lower profit margin than the wind farms, and this is why Belgium will not be subsidizing renewables as much.
The article and the conclusions are a bit odd in that they are not looking at emissions or absolute numbers of subsidies, but rather the relative number between renewables and fossil-fuel subsidies. As such what we see several countries that uses fossil fuels as reserve energy or in transportation, but which has otherwise very actually low emissions.
Finland has 14 of its energy production from fossil fuels. 1% in Sweden. In contrast, Germany which is not on their list has around 50% of its energy from fossil fuels, and was the primary nation behind getting natural gas to be included as renewables in EU's new classification. They also has the highest fossil-fuel subsidy of all EU nations in terms of absolute numbers.
The graph (fig. 7) on page 11 looks quite different from the graph on page 30 in the linked pdf of the article.
The relative number of fossil-fuels and renewables does not say anything about the cost that customer have to pay, emissions, or how of citizens taxes goes into the pockets of the fossil fuels industry. It doesn't give us any indication about the effectiveness of carbon taxes. Latvia as an example does not have much subsidies in terms of renewables, but they spend around twice the average on subsidies in green energy transition. How is that possible we might ask? By focusing on reducing energy consumption.
In the end I find all this kind of articles and reports to be noise if one simply ignore the absolute numbers of emissions and tax money being funneled into the fossil fuel industry. Other numbers can give context and additional insights, but in isolation they mostly seem to serve to hide the real facts.
This is report on taxation form European Court of Auditors.
The purpose of the report is to describe how incentives and goals match taxation,
carbon pricing and energy subsidies in countries. This report has a clear purpose and data is well suited for that.
The European Court of Auditors likely do know the numbers for emissions and absolute subsidies. The critique is on how it is being reported in isolation and without consideration of those facts.
Since those facts are missing, the article does not describe how incentives and goals match taxation, carbon pricing and energy subsidies in countries. It does not for example explain how subsidies on heating insulation and heat exchanges compared to subsidies on wind farms, what incentives those gives, how it effects carbon pricing, tax money being given to fossil fuel industries, or ability to reach green goals.
We got countries like Sweden which built their renewable hydro power infrastructure many decades ago, and we got Denmark who relative recently invested a lot in wind power. Denmark has a lot of renewable subsidies, Sweden do not, but what does that actually mean in terms of incentives and goals? Should it not matter that Denmark actually consume more fossil fuels in their energy grid?
Going back to Sweden, the primary consumption of fossil fuel in their energy sector is in terms of reserve energy. Natural gas and oil has mostly been phased out from heating, but there are fossil fuel plants that get paid to keep the engines and employees ready in case of sudden demand. How does those incentives and goals compare to countries which use fossil fuel as part of their daily operations, or where most homes are heated through fossil fuels?
To make a small analogy, the article reads like someone announcing that electric cars are terrible for the environment since they consume 0% bio fuel. If we only look at the amount of bio fuel being used, as a measure for environment it will give us an incorrect and misleading answer. An article that presented the issue like that would be rightfully criticized, and the blame would mostly go to the journalist for not including the fact that bio fuel is only one metric in a otherwise complex picture. The conclusions that got drawn by only looking at bio fuel would be discarded.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 96.5 ms ] threadAlso, there's no such thing as EU states, like there's US states. In Europe, there's member countries.
Countries in the EU are frequently referred to as member states, like in the first line of the article.
The use of “states” for dependent, in some cases also notionally sovereign, subdivisions of certain independent sovereignties notwithstanding, “states” for the independent sovereign subjects of international law in the Westphalian order has been standard usage since before there was a U.S.
There are E.U. states, but they aren't like U.S. states, because the E.U. is an international union, not a state itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state
Also, while EU “member states” have much more power than US states (including the ability to leave), they are “states” in the general sense of the word[1].
[0] Page 34: https://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/RW22_01/RW_Ener...
[1] e.g. use of phrase "EU State aid" by the EU itself.
so the report will claim that oil is heavily subsidised. Ridiculous
For example, excluding the trucking industry from fuel taxes is a fossil fuel subsidy because fuel taxes are used to pay for roads. The net effect is an increase in the number of trucks vs rail as rail is forced to pay for it’s own infrastructure while trucking would not be. The same applies to EV’s vs ICE as EV’s avoid paying for roads.
I believe the official term is "EU member state".
Well, no. EU treaties to refer to them as member states.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:...
2. They would still be way too low to account for all the negative externalities.
1)Finland - 2)Ireland - 3)Cyprus - 4)Belgium - 5)France - 6)Greece - 7)Romania - 8)Lithuania - 9)Poland - 10)Bulgaria - 11)Sweden - 12)Hungary - 13)Slovakia - 14)Slovenia - 15)Latvia
Well obviously there is: the submission of political power to economic power.
Of course, easier said than done what to do about this.
That can't be right, we have pretty huge taxes on fossil fuel and the government just increased them.
I've been searching for Sweden in it. There are references to CO2/diesel tax reductions for mining, maritime and rail sectors. Glancing at Figure 2-9, it looks like "infrastructure" and "production" are the two blocks, so I think that confirms it.
I think the net number in OPs article is based on Figure 2-9 and 2-13, but that's just a guess.
[1] https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/92a...
Cheap energy and the rest of the world is paying for it.
Fair? No.
Long term thinking? No.
Good for your lungs, etc. No.
Also faster we do the switch less expensive it will be due to the scaling effects taking off sooner.
We know we need to transform.
Of course subsidies have an effect on that. But these effect varies from country to country and from sector to sector.
Of course, calling out countries now that they have high subsidies on fossil fuels will help kicking those countries later if they fail to meet the 2030 objectives.
I suppose these subsidies exist because politicians happen to have non-exec directorships with producer companies.
Or put differently: An industry that has been very large and very profitable over a century, captures government policy for their sector. (1) This will happen unless measures are taken to prevent it.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
For example, Belgium has an aging nuclear fleet that provides 40% of the electricity supply. 5 of the 7 GW of capacity has to be closed down in the coming years. All political parties, the operator and the nuclear safety watchdog organization are in agreement on those 5 GW, but there is still debate on the remaining 2 GW. Regardless of what happens to the 2 GW, the gap in energy supply of the 5 GW needs to be filled, and this needs to happen very quickly.
There is already a planned tripling of renewables, but it will not get done in time, and it will not come even close to covering the gap. The market also wasn't addressing the coming shortfall due to regulatory uncertainty. Previous governments didn't take steps to replace the nuclear fleet, and now Belgium has run out of time and the current government has just a few years to replace the 5 or 7 GW of nuclear capacity. The only solution that was found to keep the lights on was to offer subsidies to the market for building new capacity, and most of the offers received were for gas plants, because in practice that's the only thing that can be built in time. So in practice Belgium now is forced to subsidize fossil fuels or risk the lights going out.
Ironically the gas subsidies will create windfall profits for the wind operators, because prices are set based on the most expensive energy source in the mix, and even with the subsidies that will be gas. So the gas plants will run with a lower profit margin than the wind farms, and this is why Belgium will not be subsidizing renewables as much.
Finland has 14 of its energy production from fossil fuels. 1% in Sweden. In contrast, Germany which is not on their list has around 50% of its energy from fossil fuels, and was the primary nation behind getting natural gas to be included as renewables in EU's new classification. They also has the highest fossil-fuel subsidy of all EU nations in terms of absolute numbers.
A better source if one want to look into fossil-fuel subsidies in EU is the yearly report conducted by the EU commission, here: https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/default/files/annex_to_the...
The graph (fig. 7) on page 11 looks quite different from the graph on page 30 in the linked pdf of the article.
The relative number of fossil-fuels and renewables does not say anything about the cost that customer have to pay, emissions, or how of citizens taxes goes into the pockets of the fossil fuels industry. It doesn't give us any indication about the effectiveness of carbon taxes. Latvia as an example does not have much subsidies in terms of renewables, but they spend around twice the average on subsidies in green energy transition. How is that possible we might ask? By focusing on reducing energy consumption.
In the end I find all this kind of articles and reports to be noise if one simply ignore the absolute numbers of emissions and tax money being funneled into the fossil fuel industry. Other numbers can give context and additional insights, but in isolation they mostly seem to serve to hide the real facts.
Since those facts are missing, the article does not describe how incentives and goals match taxation, carbon pricing and energy subsidies in countries. It does not for example explain how subsidies on heating insulation and heat exchanges compared to subsidies on wind farms, what incentives those gives, how it effects carbon pricing, tax money being given to fossil fuel industries, or ability to reach green goals.
We got countries like Sweden which built their renewable hydro power infrastructure many decades ago, and we got Denmark who relative recently invested a lot in wind power. Denmark has a lot of renewable subsidies, Sweden do not, but what does that actually mean in terms of incentives and goals? Should it not matter that Denmark actually consume more fossil fuels in their energy grid?
Going back to Sweden, the primary consumption of fossil fuel in their energy sector is in terms of reserve energy. Natural gas and oil has mostly been phased out from heating, but there are fossil fuel plants that get paid to keep the engines and employees ready in case of sudden demand. How does those incentives and goals compare to countries which use fossil fuel as part of their daily operations, or where most homes are heated through fossil fuels?
To make a small analogy, the article reads like someone announcing that electric cars are terrible for the environment since they consume 0% bio fuel. If we only look at the amount of bio fuel being used, as a measure for environment it will give us an incorrect and misleading answer. An article that presented the issue like that would be rightfully criticized, and the blame would mostly go to the journalist for not including the fact that bio fuel is only one metric in a otherwise complex picture. The conclusions that got drawn by only looking at bio fuel would be discarded.
Report https://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/RW22_01/RW_Ener...
Page 10 of the report shows that environment taxes have decreased in the past few years (as a share of all taxes) and labour taxes have increased.
ECA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Auditors