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.
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.