By Jo Nova
Paul Homewood came across another die-hard believer still saying “What about all the subsidies!” He reminds us of the Guardian headline hand-wringing over $7 Trillion dollars of subsidies in support of fossil fuels. The main source of this meme is the IMF, so I went to their two year old report data to create the graphs that the IMF won’t.
The IMF fossil fuel fantasy update of 2023…
The trillion dollar claims of fossil fuel subsidies amount to nothing more than IMF wet dream. Literally, 80% of the “subsidies” are what they’d like to charge oil and gas companies for things like the imaginary damage that CO2 does on simulated Earths in broken climate models. The IMF calls this “implicit subsidies”. You can I might call it a brazen fake (or worse).
The IMF has a budget of over $1 billion dollars a year, and they have 20 impenetrable super-graphs on their blog and report, but they don’t have the simple graphs like this, that I did below, showing that most of the subsidies are the “implied” imaginary sort, and that one country on Earth does all “the subsidies”. (Click to Enlarge…) Nobody mention China.
The orange “subsidies” are the total fantasies here. It really is that bad.
Fossil fuels cause car accidents, congestion and road wear don’t you know?
Unbelievably, other parts of the “80% implicit subsidy block” even include things like the cost of traffic accidents, fatalities, congestion and wear and tear on the roads. Somehow when fossil fuels cause congestion, and we suffer a loss of productivity, that’s an implicit subsidy because the price of fuel was not efficient. (Congestion is when your car gets stuck and slows you down, and “efficiency” is when you spend an hour riding a horse, and 2 hours mucking out the stables?)
The outrageous gall of this is so much that even hard-left Vox is uncomfortable and asks if this was a bit misleading of the IMF:
“… things get weirder. For instance, about 39 percent of the “social cost” of gasoline in the IMF analysis comes from accidents, traffic fatalities, and congestion. It is true that these things are externalities. But they’re caused by automobile use, not by gasoline use per se. If we switched over to solar-powered electric cars tomorrow, we’d still have traffic accidents and congestion. It’s strange to argue that this is some sort of “subsidy” for gasoline specifically.”
It’s true: The Government could have charged you more tax:
Apparently, in the deep-climate-dimension — a Blob-academic can imagine that we’d have less congestion if we taxed fuel more and discouraged driving; therefore, a lower tax is a “subsidy”. I presume efficient pricing means people should be paying so much more that there is no congestion? I wonder if their model includes the cost of suicide and divorce when taxes are so high people spent an hour less at home each day because they have to catch buses, they give up taking the kids to soccer, and don’t eat fresh food from the farmers markets that they can’t afford to drive to?
Maybe the IMF will accidentally solve congestion because everyone will give up and move to the country to grow cabbages?
The IMF Gods-of-control actually flesh out their fantasies of what they think “efficient pricing” for coal, gas, and petrol would be, and in every country on Earth.
Lo and behold, marvel at the Super-Graph below where the efficient pricing is laid out. Be grateful girls and boys, we only pay the red-dot retail price. When the IMF rules the world the real price will be the full bar. They are just practicing for when they are One World Government and can solve congestion, productivity, car accidents and stop storms with taxes!
Imagine how many man-hours this took?
page 14, IMF
I found it so hard to believe they did include road congestion and accidents, I will just include a few passages showing the intricate, vainglorious detail:
Estimating Average Delays from Road Congestion
Average delays are then multiplied by: (i) the relationship between marginal and average delays, which is estimated to be 400 percent (based on a review of the literature); (ii) vehicle occupancy (averaging over cars and buses); (iii) people’s value of travel time (VOT) which is assumed to be 60 percent of the nationwide average market wage in 2022;25 (iv) fuel economy (to express costs per liter rather than per km); and (v) the portion of the fuel demand elasticity that comes from reduced driving (and therefore affects congestion) versus the portion that comes from improved fuel economy/shifting to EVs (that does not affect congestion).26
And wear and tear on the road too:
Externalities from wear and tear on the road network imposed by high axle-weight vehicles are based on highway maintenance expenditures by country (from IRF 2022 and OECD 2023) per unit of road diesel fuel use, an assumption that half of the expenditures are attributed to vehicle use as opposed to other factors (weather and natural deterioration) and scaled by the driving portion of the fuel price elasticity.
Make these people beg directly to the voters for their salaries. It would end this nonsense in a minute…
Well put! Hilarious.
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Let us have moments silence for all the numbers and logic principles that were tortured in the production of this study.
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Famous saying:
Torture the data enough and it will confess to anything.
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It’s madness, but the beggers mean it.
Don’t think they don’t, or that they can’t make it happen.
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There doesn’t seem to be even a tenuous connection with reality.
Some of the factors mentioned may have an influence – but ‘subsidy’ …?!
If no money changes hands – is it a real subsidy.
Has any account been taken of the very real anti-subsidies – we call them ‘taxes’ ?
To call this a ‘fantasy land’ is very kind. Maybe ‘chemically induced wet dream’ … ?
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It’s The Wicker People.
It’s what they do.
They build a colossus to their pagan beliefs.
Trap us all inside.
Then burn it to the ground.
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Sounds like a battery car.
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See #1 – Wednesday …
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This is all a titanic global criminal conspiracy,
It is specifically intended to siphon off vast amounts of the peasants money to broaden these criminal operations. It is also intended to ENSLAVE most of the “survivors”.
“Spillage”?
It is a DELUGE.
Prove me wrong.
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Just a few days ago Jo wrote about the BLOB, AKA, the New Class. What the IMF is doing is just their contribution to the New Class. They are part of the BLOB and are therefore our enemy. It is no longer a conspiracy theory to alert people to the dangers of organisations like the IMF; it is our duty to warn them. We need to develop the facts, the numbers, the costs to the individual, of the various impositions upon us by government at whatever level. It is no use sitting here talking to the converted. I send copies of Jo’s posts to a group of friends, including a few that are not yet convinced that they are being misled. I also write to my local member/representative, Senator and my Party. If more did those simple things the message will get through eventually.
Net Zero is being challenged across the world and we need to keep pressure on the Coalition to adopt a No More Net Zero policy. One Nation already has one. The 60% NO vote proves there are more conservative leaning voters than the socialists.
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The chart prompted me to ask about gasoline price in Europe. Note that I pay about $4/gallon here in central Washington State.
Gas Buddy says: USA average– In USD/gallons: $4.60 per gallon
Spain Average gas price: 1.63 Euros per liter
In USD/gallons: $6.62 per gallon
The headquarters of the International Monetary Fund in Washington D. C.. is just 670 m. from the White House. Wikipedia has info and a photo. Lots of high cost people – no report of their salaries.
Under IMPACT: “According to a 2002 study by Randall W. Stone, the academic literature on the IMF shows “no consensus on the long-term effects of IMF programs on growth.”
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Apparently, we’re also subsidising the mining industry, which is terrible because they produce all that nasty coal stuff. I’ve heard this claim so many times over the years, usually from Green candidates or senators like Pocock. No, both miners and farmers are allowed to claim a rebate on the tax that is paid on their diesel fuel. That tax is levied supposedly to fix up roads. If you have heavy machinery like tractors, harvesters, diggers and dump trucks which spend virtually 100% of their time off road, you can claim back the tax. Called the Diesel rebate. But, ignoramus’s claim that’s a subsidy. I can only suppose that the IMF probably include that in their figures as well for Australia. Because even the USDA claimed that once when Australia was trying to sell wheat to Iraq and the other potential supplier was US.
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The harvest was good so the peasants should pay more tax and maintain the Palace at Versailles.
The harvest was bad so the peasants should pay more tax and maintain the Palace at Versailles.
If they complain “let them eat cake”.
What could go wrong with that?
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I’m sure Labor, the Greens and Teals will just love the IMF for their BIAS and BS and will long for the day when their collective wet dreams are a reality.
How long will these delusional loonies insist on obedience and how long will our OECD voters let these fanatics do as they please?
The trouble is that most voters haven’t got a clue and follow the latest MSM sports or entertainment events etc and put everything else into the too hard basket.
Perhaps more voters will wake up when the financial pain really kicks in, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
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It will take extended blackouts or empty shelves in the supermarket, and both are not far off.
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Any bets on if the NSW government extends the life of the Eraring power station again?
Originally scheduled to close in 2025 the life of Eraring was extended to 2027 to ensure electrickery supplies would not be interrupted. The taxpayer pays for this of course.
All governments know, or should know that relying on sunshine and breezes electrickery is fraught with danger. Prolonged wind droughts do occur as detailed by Anton on this blog.
Politicians…if there isn’t a problem they will always create one!
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Oh no, climate change is coming for the cricket! Not the type we’re meant to eat either.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-22/cricket-climate-change-report-hit-for-six/105554224
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Poor little darlings. They don’t start until 1000 and have numerous breaks. Half of them are in the sheds while the other half are wandering around in the sun. They wouldn’t last long fencing or picking up hay the old way. They wouldn’t survive welding the gas pipelines or running the drill rigs. They seem just as divorced from reality as the employees of the ABC.
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I see that road wear is due to fossil fuels – Electric cars are so much heavier, so definitely more wear
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Francis Menton points out that so far fossil fuels are attractive for investors and toxic, unreliable W & S are starting to feel the heat.
Nigel Farage’s Reform party have already written to the parasitic fanatics and told them they will not honor Labor’s W & S contracts if they win the next election.
We should also have a golden rule here in Australia, if it isn’t reliable BASELOAD energy it should be trashed.
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Here’s the link from Francis Menton’s Manhattan Contrarian.
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-7-18-which-are-the-stranded-assets-now
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Quoting Net Zero Watch’s press release…
‘The real problem with renewables is not political risk but nature itself: the fundamentals of physics and economics, which make wind and solar inherently uneconomic. The industry has been constructed on subsidy, not on market fundamentals. After decades of wind-farm handouts, consumers can no longer afford to foot the bill. Politicians can’t override physics or economics – no matter how much they subsidise failure.’
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I wish I could give you multiple ticks.
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Road wear goes across to a fourth power law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law?wprov=sfla1 and since EV’s weigh much more than an equivalent ICE vehicle they are responsible for more road wear.
Not that I’d expect a warmist, who can’t even understand the deficiencies of their own climate “models” to understand…
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Even an ordinary Toyota Rav4 weighs 2300kg.
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Most ute’s ( pick up trucks) weigh over 2100kg, and they are the biggest selling vehicle sector in Australia.
But we also have more km of unsurfaced roads than surfaced .
The biggest factors in road damage is the quality of construction,…and rain !
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Yes, greater weight is responsible for more road wear. I frequently travel along the Seymour- Shepparton Road and I notice, on the double lane sections, that most of the road damage is in the left lane in each direction. I also see that the large trucks use the left hand lane most of the time.
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Axle weights have gone up by a maximum of 20% since I’ve been driving trucks over the last 35 years.(18 tonne to 22.5 tonne for a triaxle group) Some roads I drive on in Victoria are the same surface as laid down when I was a young tacker nearly 60 years ago. These old roads are still holding up to the same increase in axle group weight as the super slabs along the Hume without tram tracking appearing. These old roads still carry highway traffic. The fail is the standard of the sub-grade. “Engineers” (a term used very loosely!) now scrimp on preparation of the sub-grade. They rely of the licorice paint to cover up their subterfuge. The licorice..er..bitumen is still supposed to waterproof the sub-grade. I am sure most people can remember the CRB/VicRoads flying squads getting out with their watering can full of emulsion filling all the little cracks in the bitumen/spray seal before it went through full thickness into the sub-grade. You would drive down an old road surface as see these squiggles running all over the place. If a pothole formed it was too late and the road surface would have to be dug up and re-laid with full compaction to form the road. Tram tracking is the manifestation of that sub-standard sub grade squashing and moving away from the load..like the mud squashing up around your toes. Tram tracking leads to cracks that eventually go full thickness forming pressure ridges, water gets in, hydraulics out the subgrade (as seen by huge amounts of gravel on the shoulder down track from the pothole) The holes get so big they can damage the heavy suspension on trucks let alone cause cars to get out of control and crash. HINT, if a truck changes lane in front of you for no apparent reason, follow them, it may save you losing a couple of rims! Your favourite bit of road, Maptram, you would have noticed two prominant sites that were there for at least three years before being repaired, the northbound left lane over the railway line at the Murchison turnoff and before that at Hughes Ck. There is not a single highway that has not suffered from neglect and lack of maintenance anywhere in this country. There are no roadcrews running around sealing the road surface with emulsion BEFORE the cracks get through the waterproof cover of bitumen/sprayseal. Hotmix is no longer the same standard. It lifts off when temperatures get higher than 35C and the surface temperatures are close to cooking an egg. YES! the old mix you could cook an egg without it getting soft or sticky! A lot of the Midland highway between Benalla and Mansfield was laid before 1970, the newest bit is around Lake Nillacootie and that was in 1967! The subgrade IS the road! prepare it well and keep the water out of it and it will last for decades.
To add. If the road levy of 20.5cpl was returned to the road and not to consolidated revenue, we would be driving on full Autobahn quality roads on all our national highways!
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Maptram..
EV weight/road wear is a non argument .
Sure roads will be damaged by heavier vehicles, but whils there are 60+ ton commercial vehicles with individual wheel loadings exceeding the total weight of an EV car, you are not going to make any serious civil engineer get concerned about EVs
Even tyre wear is a BS argument as it is far more influenced by driving style than the vehicle weight.
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in the Australia Institute report “In 2024–25, Australian governments provided $14.9 billion worth of spending and tax breaks to assist fossil fuel producers and major users, a 3% increase on 2023–24.
Subsidies in the forward estimates have increased from $65 billion to a record $67 billion, a sum 14.2 times larger than the nation’s $4.75 billion disaster response fund.”
now how much is given to Wind? According to the https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/australias-1-billion-electricity-bill-foreign-owned-wind-farm-windfall#:~:text=In%202024%2C%20through%20the%20LRET,entirely%20or%20partially%20foreign%20owned., The subsidy given to wind projects is around a quarter of that given to fossil fuels
And Solar according to the Centre for Independent Studies puts the subsisidy at around 400 million.
So renewables on a cost basis are not preventing as many accidents as fossil fules
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Peter, Get a grip. The fossil fuel industry subsidizes Australia. Coal and Gas are some of our largest exports, and massive tax contributors.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency gets $7billion to subsidize a pointless energy source, a vandal on the good grid.
Half the cost of every solar panel installed is paid by the poor electricity consumers who can’t afford solar. The large scale RET and the small scale SRES were worth $3b a year and that was in 2020 before Labor came to power and supercharged it. The entire cost of the Snowy 2.0 scheme, and all the interconnectors we don’t need are a subsidy for “renewable-unreliables”. The cost of the batteries is also a subsidy. As is the cost of flying a group of grifters to the COP meetings each year, and the cost of funding research and models where we know the answer before we start the research. Alan Moran estimates it was $13 billion a year in subsidies (in 2020). More now.
Then theres the “SafeGuard Mechanism”, a weather controlling policy, and a carbon tax. Don’t get me started. Obscene.
Then there’s $1b to the ABC to fool Australians into thinking this is going to save them from bushfires in 2100. That’s free advertising on prime time TV for renewables and against fossil fuels day in and day out.
There’s $1b+ to the CSIRO to create incompetent models with ridiculous pro-renewables biased costings.
Then there’s all the state subsidies, like the WA Clean Energy Fund — $37m a year. I have barely begun.
PS: The Fuel Tax Credit Scheme (FTCS) which the Australia Institute refers to, isn’t a subsidy. All off road vehicles, and vehicles working on private land are not expected to pay a tax designed to maintain sealed roads. This is the “bulk” of the imaginary subsidies the Australia Institute is pretending are a subsidy. $8-$11b a year of mislabelled normal tax policy. They deceive and distort for a living.
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If you use biodiesel of up to 30% in a blend you can claim 100% of the tax credit: https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/income-deductions-and-concessions/incentives-and-concessions/fuel-schemes/in-detail/fuel-blends
The provider of the biodiesel has already claimed the product stewardship for oil benefit from the levies collected on imported fuel: https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/income-deductions-and-concessions/incentives-and-concessions/fuel-schemes/product-stewardship-for-oil-program
To paint this expenditure as ‘fossil fuel subsidies’ is disingenuous in the report – there is actually ‘double-dipping’ for the non-fossil fuel in the scheme. (scuse the pun – dipping / fuel)
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So you’ve compared a highly biased, negative, anti Hydrocarbon report by The Australia Institute (a well renowned left leaning, climate catastrophising, Labor apologist group), to the much more balanced and conservative report by the IPA on wind only? Hardly a fair comparison. Also, “tax breaks” are very different to handouts.
I’m happy for subsidies to be allocated to the Hydrocarbon industry and users as they give us huge benefits in return, ie, an abundance of food from our agricultural industry, huge royalties from our mining sector and general overall economic wealth.
Outright subsidises and handouts of millions of tax payer dollars to foreign owned companies planting wind turbines, solar panels and battery banks all across our native bush land and prime agricultural land for a pathetic return of 20-30% output of the infrastructure’s capacity and a short life span are a crime. Only grifters like Twiggy forest and other delusional, sycophant supporters of the Net Zero fantasy would support those handouts.
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Diesel fuel rebate is not a subsidy. In the old days they worked out at the pump whether you had to pay the tax or not. We used to fill the truck on one pump and the earthoving gear on another (tax free). It was difficult and complex. It was decided by smarter heads that it was MUCH easier to charge the tax at the pump and give it back through the BAS. Clean, efficient and easy.
Later the trucks were given the rebate as well, as it was just too complex to work it all out and it was all being passed direct to the Consumer anyway (and Lord knows they pay enough tax already).
But clean efficient and easy are not words that fit in the mind of the Climate Addled.
Seems we should return to the old way, just don’t tax trucks and earthmoving kit at the pump.
Then even Peter Fitzroy (and Simon?) might be able to work it out while leaving his shoes on.
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Looks like something in need of DOGEing. US contributes 17% of its funding. Remove that and these unaccountable blood suckers will feel it.
The IMF has 3000+ staff and many working on the globalist agenda. They produce the sort of garbage Jo highlights because it supports their agenda and justifies denying funds for fossil fuel projects in poor nations. High cost solar panel and battery good – low cost coal fired generator bad.
Both IMF and World Bank are headquartered in the USA and USA provides safe haven for them and is the largest funder for both. So easy enough for DOGE to walk into and demand to see the books.
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If you could calculate the difference in the time taken to travel by car compared to bicycle, wouldn’t that offset the ‘delays from congestion’ cost more than sufficiently.
And how do the Saudi’s have the same supply cost as all other countries for road diesel in the big graph – the cost for oil producers just cannot be the same, they don’t have any transit or marketing costs…
This graph is showing what they want to say – https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/ – they think that the poor should pay more for fuel because it makes us in the richer countries question how much we pay – they just can’t say it straight out.
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Maybe the IMF will accidentally solve congestion because everyone will give up and move to the country to grow cabbages?
That’s exactly what the Romen Emperor Diocletian did, right down to the cabbages.
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Did anybody else notice that the “efficient” price of petrol and diesel are well below the current price at the servo?
Does that mean the government will give us rebates?
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