It has been long argued against regulating Fossil Fuel production for the climate’s sake. Conservatives have been claiming that doing this would interfere with the holy free market. A new study shows a total fairy tale because the invisible hand is not responsible for dirty fuel market dominance. The subsidies total up to billions each year is what the findings show.
The Fossil Fuel companies get direct subsidies from the government. Per year the estimates go from $10 billion to $52 billion. Many insidious indirect subsidies also help to keep fossil fuel companies in the business. This allows the companies to avoid paying the true price for polluting and the other dangers they create for society.
In particular, the paper looks at the detrimental impacts the firms offload onto society, specifically climate damages and public health impacts from pollution. For gas and diesel, Kotchen also overlooked the costs of car accident fatalities, road damages from usage of heavy vehicles, congestion-based travel delays, etc.
Kotchen said, “When there’s an externality, you don’t have a free market. People think it’s a free market because it’s just the way it is and there’s no regulation.”
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