Yeah, in the cited study is almost all externalities. Only something like $500B is attributed to direct subsidies or foregone tax revenue.

"only" 500 BILLION. How is that small change

It's not small change, but when it is ~10% of the claimed figure I think "only" is the proper adjective.

It's what upsets me about these sorts of papers- "civilian" climate change skeptics/deniers point to them as evidence of the dishonesty of consensus community. They are able to take away the wrong message- that consensus community is stretching and manipulating the data, rather than there are $300-600B of subsidies for fossil fuels out there.

If the author of that article had to misrepresent in order to pump the number up by 10x we can assume that they didn't think 500 billion was a compelling enough number.

> Yeah, in the cited study is almost all externalities.

Negative externalities are a type of subsidy.

I think the point is it’s not a subsidy that could instead be spent somewhere else.

Closing the loophole of a negative externality absolutely would generate revenue that could be spent elsewhere. Carbon taxes are a perfect example.

It is counted as a valid means of subsidy by both the EU and WTO. The UK was singled out for increasing fossil fuel subsidy by the EU, when UK gov reduced the VAT rate on domestic fuel bills. As the grid moves to renewables the level of subsidy declines.

The UK kept that reduced rate on domestic fuel when they brought in a low carbon price floor (another bonus of EU membership). That managed to take almost all coal out of UK power generation - there's only three plants left, all marked to close in the next couple of years. It's already starting to have impact on gas's viability.

As different rules apply to vehicle fuel, and domestic fuel, individual behaviour hasn't been much affected, and cities are still full of dirty air from internal combustion. UK has been particularly weak at improving air quality in the last decade or so.

Definitions are contextual. I think it's 100% reasonable for the EU and WTO to define subsidy in such a way that it can include untaxed externalities. I'm comfortable with that definition myself. I still think it was deceptive for imglorp to transplant that definition into a context where it wasn't mutually understood and then leverage the misunderstanding to promote an incorrect picture of reality.

> We are spending more than $5T annually on fossil subsidies. All you have to do is divert that elsewhere.

"Spending" and "divert" imply a cash flow, not a flow of value in the form of a collection of externalities. That's relevant. Redirecting funds is a different political beast from increasing taxes. To be clear, I want a carbon tax. Let's promote it with logic, not with clumsy attempts at deception.

Sure, it's more accurate to note fossil receives $5t in visible and invisible subsidy, but as more nations start to move to carbon pricing, their absence becomes a far more overt policy-driven subsidy.

So I'm a little more flexible in a web discussion than I would hope for from a finance minister. Except actual politicians, of all colours, are even more creative in the hoops jumped to imply wholly incorrectly their own tax raising policies are not a tax hike such that it becomes a logic and fact free zone.

Personally, I want the same as you, perhaps a little further as I'd like those externalities baked into the price of everything, and required to be picked out before sale. Maybe required on every label like how calories or salt content is picked out on food. Then I can choose logically or at least knowingly. I don't think politicians are ever willing, after a little industry lobbying, to give us that... Which applies to far too many issues, not just climate.

> Sure, it's more accurate to note fossil receives $5t in visible and invisible subsidy

No, that's absurd way to put it. It's like saying that shipping industry receives trillions of dollars of invisible subsidy due to not having to rent the ocean water the container ships float on. Yes, if oceans didn't exist, shipping would be quite a bit more expensive, and you can even do the math and put a number on that, but the fact is that if you tried to "divert" these "invisible" subsidies from shipping companies, and taxed them for the trillions of imputed income, you'll soon find that those trillions do not line up shipping companies pockets.

The only reason to call it "subsidy" is to imply that the companies are "unfairly" benefiting, but unless these externalities have actual cost to the economy instead of just imputed carbon/water tax, you'll find no resources to divert.

Of course they have an actual cost the economy. In health impacts from polluted air, in impacts from changed climate, increasing intensity storms, floods and such. There's been more than enough studies showing impacts.

The ocean analogy isn't such a far stretch either - the increasing levels of pollution and emissions from container traffic, using a particularly dirty fuel and an industry that flushes tanks and oil rich pollutants in international waters has an impact on water quality, fish stocks and other ocean life. Roads are a subsidy on cars as they are paid for by general taxation rather than specifically on vehicle use.

Those externalities should all be priced in to discourage impactful behaviour, and encourage truly sustainable behaviour, on the sole viable planet we currently have. At the very least we can make a poor choice knowingly.

> The only reason to call it "subsidy" is to imply that the companies are "unfairly" benefiting, but unless these externalities have actual cost to the economy instead of just imputed carbon/water tax, you'll find no resources to divert.

It very much does have actual cost, just not today or tomorrow, so it's a bit harder to calculate.

If I break your bike in the middle of winter, the cost won't actualize until spring when you would have used it, and instead have to pay for the bus. So sure, it's not a Q4 cost, but it is real nonetheless.

As someone who believes in action on climate change and is very willing to take the consumption and taxation hits that that implies, this is what frustrates me most about the climate conversation: I've already "priced in" the existence of stubborn skeptics and greedy people, but the fact that even the "good guys" compulsively lie and distort the facts when it comes to climate change makes changing public opinion seem insurmountable (and this is how you change policy in a democracy). It's at times like these when the criticism of my fellow leftists as religious adherents[1] sounds the most uncomfortably true: people talk in terms of facts but think in terms of dogma and heresy. There's no claim in support of the dogma that should be suppressed and no claim in favor of the heresy that should be acknowledged.

It reminds me of nothing so much as the tenor of criticism of Trump, especially early in his term. The man is already a monster! You don't need to keep lying to make him look like one, and all it does is turn of people who mightve agreed with your legitimate criticism!

[1] To be clear, I have no reason to think that our counterparts on the right don't do this too. It just makes more of an impact to realize that everyone around you is dishonest and stupid than it does to realize that everyone in a relatively alien subculture is.

For it to be quite so left/right is uniquely American. In the UK a majority of supporters of both main parties want more dramatic action on climate. The right have yet to respond with a credible policy - going with "ignore it whilst talking loudly about their having committed to carbon neutral 2050", i.e. all mouth and no trousers.

Why the heck would climate get a uniquely honest political conversation? Politicians of all colours lie, obfuscate and distort the facts on all issues all the time, whilst continuing to hurtle in a direction most of the country's voters would prefer not. Unless the US experience has been very different, most votes will be for least worst, not in favour of either as tribal loyalties mostly died last century, only really remaining tribal with the elderly. It's one of the reasons for such a deep mistrust and disillusionment of politics and may have contributed to some of the world's "surprise" results lately, along with so many polls being proved wrong.

Honesty and politics are oil and water. The honest discussion is usually elsewhere.

About ~1 Billion of that cited number is from global warming costs. The larger portions is from health costs associated with air pollution which accounts for ~2 Billion. You can find a break down of the sources of that subsidy at the bottom of page 21 of the linked article.

Do you mean trillion here?

Haha, yup