Article originally published by Forbes.
A new International Monetary Fund (IMF) study shows that USD$5.2 trillion was spent globally on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017. The equivalent of over 6.5% of global GDP of that year,… The report explains that fossil fuels account for 85% of all global subsidies and that they remain largely attached to domestic policy.
As the prices associated with fossil-fuel power generation continue to increase and become harder for utility companies to justify, the price of renewable energy has also plummeted. Along with the IMF report, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) released its own study looking into how the renewable energy industry has grown over a similar time period. The cost of onshore wind power generation has dropped 23% since 2010, while solar electricity saw a decrease of 73%.
… the $649 billion the US spent on these subsidies in 2015 is more than the country’s defense budget and 10 times the federal spending for education . When read in conjunction with a recent study showing that up to 80% of the United States could in principle be powered by renewables, the amount spent on fossil fuel subsidies seems even more indefensible…Forbes