Fridays For Future: Tax gifts to fossil fuels are climate policy madness!

Fridays For Future: Tax gifts to fossil fuels are climate policy madness!

During today's budget speech by Finance Minister Marterbauer at the Burgtheater in Vienna, the climate protection movement Fridays For Future staged a protest. This campaign aimed to draw attention to the high expenditure on fossil fuels and called for using the current budget crisis to cancel tax gifts to the fossil fuel industry. Econews reports that a petition has been launched calling on the finance minister to end climate-damaging subsidies.

Sofia Scherer from Fridays For Future criticized the spending on fossil fuels, which not only leads to climate damage but could also be associated with fines later. According to the KONTEXT Institute, 1.04 billion euros could be saved annually if three transport subsidies were reformed in a socially just manner. The planned expenditure of 70 million euros for the construction of a gas pipeline appeared particularly questionable, the relevance of which is already questionable.

Criticism of fossil subsidies

Laila Kriechbaum, spokeswoman for Fridays For Future Austria, described the continuation of privileges for oil pipelines as “negligent”. She emphasized that more commitment from political decision-makers is needed to address fossil subsidies, especially at a time when Austria needs to save money. The Ministry of Finance has until tomorrow, May 18th, to present a plan to reform fossil fuel production.

Against the backdrop of the climate crisis, a transformation of the economic and energy system is essential. An analysis by the Austrian Institute for Economic Research (WIFO), which was carried out on behalf of the BMK, has shown that the volume of climate-counterproductive subsidies has not changed in recent years, despite some progress in awareness of the climate crisis. The BMK highlights that such subsidies must be identified and eliminated in order to effectively counteract the climate crisis.

Subsidy volume in detail

On average over the last few years, the volume of climate-counterproductive subsidies in Austria has been between 4.1 and 5.7 billion euros. 61 percent of this relates to transport measures, which corresponds to around 2.5 to over 4 billion euros. Around three quarters of these transport subsidies relate to road transport, while a quarter is distributed between air transport and shipping. In addition, around 38 percent of the total subsidy volume, which corresponds to around 1.6 billion euros, goes to energy production and consumption. Agriculture only benefits from an amount of 28 million euros, which is less than one percent of the total volume.

Overall, these data show significant scope for action to reduce financial burdens caused by climate-counterproductive subsidies, especially for regulations that are within national competence.