Coal, oil, gas subsidies higher than public health spending

[Oscar]

Coal, oil, gas subsidies higher than public health spending

[ https://euobserver.com/environment/128753 ]

By Peter Teffer ol Brussels, 19. May, 2015 09:28

Around 1.6 million premature deaths would be prevented annually if the world's governments stopped subsidising fossil fuels, a study by four researchers from the International Monetary Fund found.

The most relative gains could be made in eastern Europe and Turkey, where 60 percent of the people who die as a result of air pollution are estimated could be saved.

The IMF study, published Monday (18 May), calculated the “true costs” of the widespread practice of giving tax benefits and other subsidies to companies in the fossil fuel industry (coal, oil, gas). It was a “shocking” figure, the authors themselves said: $5.3 trillion, or about €4.7 trillion.
[ http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2015/05/1 ... y-problem/ ]

The figure is higher than what governments worldwide spend on public health.

In their calculation, the researchers included “its supply costs and the damage that energy consumption inflicts on people and the environment”.

They argue that most of the costs of health and environmental problems that fossil fuels cause are not paid by the industry but by governments and its taxpayers.

The burning of fossil fuels contributes to air pollution, which in turn is estimated to cause around 400,000 people in the EU to die prematurely each year. The EU commission has put the annual economic costs of the health impacts of air pollution at between €330 and €940 billion for the EU.

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[ https://euobserver.com/environment/128753 ]