New estimates present authorities subsidies that ease fossil power consumption prices smashed data final yr regardless of nations’ vows to section these funds right down to struggle local weather change, Ben writes.
Driving the information: Subsidies for oil, gasoline and energy reached greater than $1 trillion as governments regarded to assist defend customers from final yr’s worth spikes, per the Worldwide Power Company. That’s greater than double 2021 ranges.
Why it issues: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted family power prices to soar final yr.
IEA says some subsidies are defensible “given the hardship that full publicity to market-driven costs may have prompted.” However the subsidies’ scale is “nonetheless a worrying signal for power transitions.”
Menace stage: Whereas governments wish to pace low-carbon power progress, “these worth interventions labored in the wrong way by favoring the incumbent fuels.”
Of word: The subsidies are concentrated in rising market and growing nations.
However IEA notes vital spending to chop client payments — largely in Europe — is “not essentially captured in our methodology.”
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