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Re:15 EU states subsidise fossil-fuels more than renewables by belorn on Sunday February 06, 2022 @06:11AM (#30231427)
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.

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.

Re:15 EU states subsidise fossil-fuels more than renewables by nabla9 on Sunday February 06, 2022 @06:34AM (#30231593)
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.
Re:15 EU states subsidise fossil-fuels more than renewables by belorn on Sunday February 06, 2022 @07:06AM (#30231780)
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.