> 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.

Indeed the use of “state” to refer to US states is probably a legacy of when the US states were (sovereign) states.

Each one is a nation state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state

>Also, there's no such thing as EU states, like there's US states. In Europe, there's member countries.

Well, no. EU treaties to refer to them as member states.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:...

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].

[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.

the way it works is that oil is taxed let's say at 100% markup, and then temporarily the government decreases it to 80%, creating a 20% subsidy

so the report will claim that oil is heavily subsidised. Ridiculous

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.

> Also, 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.

> Also, there's no such thing as EU states, like there's US states. In Europe, there's member countries.

I believe the official term is "EU member state".

"state" is a very flexible term for many kinds of political entities, including countries, and correctly used here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)

1. Your numbers are incorrect.

2. They would still be way too low to account for all the negative externalities.

The taxes are also supposed to finance infrastructure, but they are too low even for that.

That is irrelevant. Fossil fuels are heavily taxed. Way more than renewables. Period.