New research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance this week shows that fossil fuel subsidies are 12 times greater than for renewables.

According to the analysis, governments of the world are spending substantially more on subsidizing fossil fuels than on renewables and biofuels.

“In all, governments of the world provided approximately $43-46 billion to renewable energy and biofuels technologies, projects, and companies in 2009,” according ot the research. “This total includes the cost of renewable energy credits or certificates, tax credits, cash grants, feed-in-tariffs and other direct subsidies. The amount does not include more “upstream” support, such as subsidies to corn farmers to grow feedstock for use in U.S. ethanol plants, nor does it include any value transfer from carbon cap-and-trade schemes. The $43-46 billion stands in stark contrast to the $557 billion the research shows was spent on subsidizing fossil fuels in 2008, as estimated by the International Energy Agency last month.”

“One of the reasons the clean energy sector is starved of funding is because mainstream investors worry that renewable energy only works with direct government support,” said Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “Setting aside the fact that in many cases clean energy competes on its own merits – for instance in the case of well-situated wind farms and Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol   this analysis shows that the global direct subsidy for fossil fuels is around [twelve] times the subsidy for renewables. And that is without taking into account the enormous security and public health costs of fossil fuels, as well as the appalling pollution catastrophes on the Gulf Coast, the Niger Delta and elsewhere.”