Pictures: Eleven Nations With Large Fossil-Fuel Subsidies

Governments spend billions of dollars each year to keep the price of fossil fuels low, burdening state finances and encouraging wasteful energy consumption.

Fire spreads through a Tehran gasoline station in 2007, the kind of protest that has paralyzed governments around the world that are addicted to fossil-fuel subsidies.

More at National Geographic

3 Comments on "Pictures: Eleven Nations With Large Fossil-Fuel Subsidies"

DC on Tue, 19th Jun 2012 6:34 pm 



Not a very good article. The section of the Us gives the (false) impression, that the US ‘only’ provides 15billion, directly a year to the Oil-cartel. Its at least 3-4 times that figure and possibly higher still. Natgeo for example, focuses on so-called tax breaks, but never mentions that Us Oilcos basically remove oil from the US royalty free. Nor do they mention the massive support for cars-only infastructure. The dollar figures there dwarf any direct subsidies. Other countries do subsidize oil more directly than the US, but few of them underwrite suburbia or massive networks of costly cars-only ‘freeways’ like the US does. The US has trillions of dollars of locked in cars-only subsidies. Those other 10 nations combined cant even touch the US in this dept. How abou the 100s of billions spent to keep insolvent airlines and makers of primitive, backwards cars and trucks afloat? Winner: US again by a wide margin.

Q/Governments spend billions of dollars each year to keep the price of fossil fuels low, burdening state finances and encouraging wasteful energy consumption.

The US is the undisputed world leader in wasteful energy consumption and subsidies.

BillT on Wed, 20th Jun 2012 12:48 am 



You said it all, DC. Bailing out GM was an indirect oil subsidy. Bailing out the airlines over and over is an oil subsidy. Not to mention the cost to invade and then garrison oil countries.

MrEnergyCzar on Wed, 20th Jun 2012 11:50 pm 



How much is just the Navy’s 5th Fleet in the Strait of Hormuz each year…

MrEnergyCzar