[abdullahkhalids]

> Globally, fossil fuel subsidies were $7 trillion in 2022 or 7.1 percent of GDP.... Differences between efficient prices and retail fuel prices are large and pervasive, for example, 80 percent of global coal consumption was priced at below half of its efficient level in 2022. [1]

Fossil fuels will die a lot quicker if we stop subsiding them to the tune of 7% of global GDP, i.e. 7% of all economic activity globally is redirected to make fossil fuels cheaper. To put it yet another way, if you work 250 days/year (50 weeks, 5 days/week), then 17.5 days of your work is redirected to make fossil fuels cheaper.

[1] https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2023/08/22/IMF...

[Aunche]

> fossil fuel subsidies were $7 trillion in 2022

Nearly all of that "subsidy" is the lack of taxation of the negative externalities of fossil fuels. Even fossil fuel propaganda isn't this disingenuous with the way it frames things. That's like saying that fossil fuels are under-subsidized by trillions of dollars because they are used to power hospitals and can be used to power hospitals in Africa.

[abdullahkhalids]

Depends on your political values. Many people think it is mandatory for governments to directly tax products with large negative externalities enough to price in those externalities. If a fossil fuel extraction system poisons a river, that needs to be priced in. If the government fails to tax what is mandatorily society's due, then it is a subsidy. Because we have to pay for the poisoned river in other ways.

> fossil fuels are under-subsidized by trillions of dollars because they are used to power hospitals

Nope. Governments/patients pay hospitals for their services, then hospitals pay power companies the market price for their services.

[two_handfuls]

That seems fair to me. Negative externalities are part of the cost we all pay (not the oil companies), just like other forms of subsidy.