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)

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.

> there is no obvious single problem to solve which would affect these nations' governing bodies' attitudes towards energy policy

Well obviously there is: the submission of political power to economic power.

Of course, easier said than done what to do about this.

Sweden?

That can't be right, we have pretty huge taxes on fossil fuel and the government just increased them.

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.

[1] https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/92a...

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.