Fridays for future: Tax gifts on fossils are climate policy madness!

Fridays for future: Tax gifts on fossils are climate policy madness!

During today's budget speech by Finance Minister Marterbauer at the Burgtheater in Vienna, the climate protection movement Friday for future organized a protest. This campaign aimed to point out the high expenditure for fossil grants and demanded that the current budget crisis use to delete the tax gifts to the fossil industry. Oekonews reported that a petition has started to appeal to the finance minister.

Sofia Scherer from Fridays for Future criticized the expenditure for fossil grants, which not only lead to climate damage, but could also be associated with penalty payments later. According to the context institute, 1.04 billion euros could be saved annually if three traffic funding is socially reformed. The planned expenditure amount of 70 million euros for the construction of a gas pipeline, 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 political decision -makers need more commitment to tackle fossil subsidies, especially in times when Austria has to save financially. The Ministry of Finance has to submit a plan to reform the fossil funding until tomorrow, May 18th. Against the background of the climate crisis, a transformation of the economic and energy system is essential. An analysis of the Austrian Institute for Economic Research (WIFO), which was created on behalf of the BMK, showed that the volume of climate control -productive subsidies has not changed in recent years, despite some progress in the awareness of the climate crisis. The BMK emphasizes that such subsidies must be identified and dismantled in order to effectively counteract the climate crisis.

subsidy volume in detail

On average in recent years, the volume of climate control -productive funding in Austria was between 4.1 and 5.7 billion euros. Of this, 61 percent are on traffic measures, which corresponds to around 2.5 to over 4 billion euros. Around three quarters of these traffic funding are eliminated on road traffic, while a quarter is distributed on air traffic and shipping. In addition, around 38 percent of the total subsidy volume, which corresponds to around 1.6 billion euros, are eliminated to energy generation and consumption. Agriculture only benefits an amount of 28 million euros, which is under one percent of the total volume.

Overall, this data shows a significant scope for action to reduce financial burdens from climate control -productive subsidies, especially in the case of regulations that lie in national competence.