Who’s really keeping fossil fuels alive? Taxpayers globally

The private sector, by contrast, is putting more money in renewables

    • Governments subsidise carbon-based energy to make it artificially cheap, which encourages us to use more polluting energy and deters us from making the switch to cleaner alternatives.
    • Governments subsidise carbon-based energy to make it artificially cheap, which encourages us to use more polluting energy and deters us from making the switch to cleaner alternatives. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
    Published Mon, Jul 6, 2026 · 06:00 PM

    TO JUDGE by the way many people discuss the energy transition, we are engaged in a fight between green idealogues in government and academia on the one hand, and a more realistic private sector that recognises the innate superiority of fossil fuels on the other.

    Follow the money, and you will see precisely the opposite picture. The share of private energy investment going into oil, gas and coal has slumped from about 50 per cent to 28 per cent since 2015, indicated an International Energy Agency (IEA) database.

    The public sector, meanwhile, still invests most of its money in dirty power – 53 per cent, down more marginally from 67 per cent a decade ago.