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Comment by greensh | Hacker News Reader

The EU is not doing anything near enough against global warming.

They really should end fuel subsidies. We're paying taxes to promote fuel use. That's a really bad use of our taxes. (Some are apparently already being phased out, but others are not, from what I understand, and they've gone up dramatically in the past couple of years.)

As for digital rules, the EU should definitely stand firm and invest in its own tech sector, instead of caving to the US. Same with everything else where our standards are higher than theirs (food, human rights).

There are no subsidies, gas and diesel are the most expensive in the world, and most of the cost is taxes. But apparently, for the EU politicians, that is still too cheap, so they want even more taxes on top of that.

https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/fossil-fuel...

> Notably, more than 60% of all fossil fuel subsidies granted in 2023 were spent in three countries: Germany (EUR 41 billion), Poland (EUR 16 billion), and France (EUR 15 billion).

This is another one of those cases where people say "Europe" when meaning something much more country specific.

I can't find any detailed breakdown of this; I'm guessing it's something to do with coal mining in Germany?

France has absolutely no excuse, though. Largest nuclear power generation in Europe and subsidizing fossil fuels? I bet it's something to do with farming.

Your bet is right, but it's based on a misunderstanding. Those are not real subsidies, those are tax exemption on farmers, fishermen, trucker and traveling nurses.

And airplanes. They also pay no fuel tax, as far as I'm aware. Or at least it's rare; it requires bilateral agreements to tax fuel.

You are thinking too logically. In EU fuel is expensive because it’s heavily taxed AND there are a lot of fuel subsidies.

Or to quote an old TV show: Hacker: One of your officials pays farmers to produce surplus food, while on the same floor, the next office is paying them to destroy the surpluses. Maurice: That is not true! Hacker: No? Maurice: He is not in the next office, not even on the same floor!

At least in France, the fuel 'subsidies' are not real subsidies, but tax exemption for different kind of people: farmers, truckers, fishermen and private nurses (I don't have a good translation, basically health workers who go directly to patients homes instead of working at a clinic or hospital). There was also a one time relief for people with fuel heating who earn less than 40k (I'm simplifying) in 2022 because of the Russian war, but it was extremely limited.

Maybe next time you imply my government is incompetent on a specific subject, do your research first. It is incompetent on a lot, don't get me wrong, but no one here need more disinformation hidden as a quip.

I didn't even mention France, but if you insist:

I am using Fossil Fuel Support dataset from OECD. Latest available year is 2024: Specifically for petroleum there were 5228 million euros in tax exemptions and 586 million euros in direct budgetary transfer. For all fossil fuels there were 5 656 million in tax exemptions and 2579 million in direct budgetary transfers. So real, direct subsidies definitely exist.

In 2021 Europe provided $135 Billion in subsidies to the petroleum industry. A net increase of about 30% from 2015.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fossil-fuel-subsidies-per...

There is no point fighting against global warming if you're the only one doing it. If China, USA and India are not on the same page, the result will be that production will move even more to those countries, global warming will continue and European will just be poorer.

You right. Market competition makes this situation a prisonors dilemna. Under capitalism this problem will persist.

Their policies are a grift to funnel money to the right people so that's not surprising.

Do you have anything to support that claim? Carbon taxes are a theoretically effective mechanism to tilt the markets towards more sustainable means of production, that is something most economists agree on; alas, practically they are often thwarted by caving out exceptions or delays for short-term political gain.

You probably mean carbon credits, from the EU Emissions Trading System. Wikipedia has a lengthy and well-balanced article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Tradi...

It's an ugly and wasteful system set up instead of other, simpler measure that were politically unacceptable at the time, like higher VAT, excise duties on all fossil fuels across all industries without exception, including fuel oil for heating and aviation fuel.

At the moment carbon is still getting subsidizes for 100 billion per year. I'd love it if they taxed it by that amount.

If most economists agree on something, it probably isn't true. Just like every economist agreed that there would be no inflation in 2020.

Mmm. The language is not precise enough - if most economists agree on something it probably is true. If the corporate media gives the impression all economists agree on something, it is probably not true.

Economists as a profession understand extremely well that they have no ability predict the economic future beyond what the futures markets say.

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