$47billion fossil fuel subsidies over next 4 years - Australia

As us pensioners sit at home barely able to survive (the high rent wasn't our fault BTW, any more than the lack of gov housing) contemplating the nit picking Abbott gov decision to refuse us free Panadole if we use over 52 prescriptions in a calendar year, we watch from the sidelines astounded that the dirty fossil fuel industry will receive $47 billion in subsidies by the Australian gov over the next 4 years alone, just for being the fossil fuel industry.

In an budget forecast punctuated by fiscal belt tightening, Australia’s fossil fuel sector is set to receive a whopping $47 billion in federal government subsidies over the next four years, a new report has found.

The analysis, released on Thursday by the Australian Conservation Foundation, uses federal budget data confirmed by this week’s mid-year economic and fiscal outlook (MYEFO) to identify and tally government handouts for the production and use of fossil fuels.

Among the biggest are the Fuel Tax Credit scheme ($27.9 billion over four years), concessional rate of excise on aviation fuel ($5.5 billion), accelerated depreciation rules ($1.5 billion) and the removal of the carbon price ($12.5 billion) more

Australia plays a big part BTW in the overall global fossil fuel subsidy empire, now calculated at $5.3 trillion a year, or more than the total spend by the world on health. We are on a ship of fools.

How large are global energy subsidies? The answer: quite a lot larger than we thought, according to new estimates from the International Monetary Fund, which puts the cost of subsidising fossil fuels at an enormous $US5.3 trillion a year, or around $US10 million a minute every day.

The eye-watering figure, based on calculations the IMF describes as “extremely robust,” is more than double the projected 2014 estimate the IMF released around this time last year, and amounts to more than the total health spending of all the world’s governments.

It is somewhat of an irony, then, that the IMF’s new figure of $5.3 trillion is largely attributed to polluters not paying the costs – social welfare, health, environmental and broader economic – imposed on governments for the burning of coal, oil and gas. more