Fossil Fuel Consumption Subsidies (Image: IEA)

One upside of cheap oil — countries are ditching their fossil-fuel subsidies

In 2013, governments around the world spent $548 billion to subsidize the use of oil, gas, and coal. This practice drives economists absolutely nuts: they say it’s wasteful, eats up budgets, and leads to more pollution and global warming than would otherwise be the case. Yet countries have long been reluctant to scrap these fossil-fuel