Claim of ‘$5.3 Trillion On Government Fossil Fuel Subsidies?’ ‘What Total And Utter Bilge!’
Here’s the giveaway passage from the Guardian‘s article:
The vast subsidy derives largely from polluters not paying the costs imposed on governments by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These include the harm caused to local populations by air pollution, and to people across the globe affected by the floods, droughts and storms being driven by climate change.
In other words, the IMF doesn’t mean “subsidies” in the sense that most of us would understand: that is, handouts from the state to favoured institutions. It means “subsidies” in the sense of “vast, almost limitless taxes which the governments should have imposed but haven’t”.
