Europe sabotages its own climate goals by giving the fossil sector more than €137 billion per year in subsidies

[Simon]

There have been a lot of talks about Europe being a climate leader, but the EU and European countries like Norway and Great Britain are sabotaging its own climate goals by subsidising the fossil sector by more than €137 billion per year, according to a new report by Investigate Europe.

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While Europe is trying to achieve an energy transition with hundreds of billions of Euros spent on the ambitious Green Deal, all European member states with fiscal regulations and tax advantages are also maintaining their fossil sector. Poland continues to pump money into the coal mines; Italian tax breaks for the use of diesel total more than five billion euros, and the Greek government continues to pay the fossil sector to transport shiploads of oil and diesel from the mainland to the tourist islands to keep power running in the high season.

When we calculated tax exemptions for the fossil sector, the car, aviation and shipping industries and the free certificates that companies receive from the government to emit Co2, we found that European countries subsidise the fossil sector by more than 137 billion Euros per year. Before and after Covid-19, this shows no sign of changing; on the contrary.

Europe will never be able to fulfil its climate commitments or emission reduction goals if it doesn’t stop these enormous subsidies to the fossil fuel sector. But despite this, there are still no plans to phase out these huge fossil subsidies.