"Cars in my country get taxed directly or indirectly (through fuel) based in part on emissions"

Unless these emmission taxes are calibrated to the cost of climate change then this argument is missing the point. Taxes and subsidies are often instituted in response to negative and positive externalities, but that doesn't change the fact that they are different things. This is important when trying to draw policy comparisons which is our situation here.

You seem to want to argue that subsidizing a business and not taxing them on an externality is somehow morally the same thing, and that's an entirely different discussion, but it doesn't mean that they are factually the same thing. There is a practical difference in terms of how things are measured and how policies are compared across industries and governments and that difference matters.

>Unless these emmission taxes are calibrated to the cost of climate change then this argument is missing the point.

The stated policy goal in part is to reduce emissions to met climate targets to fight climate change, so yes.

>You seem to want to argue that subsidizing a business and not taxing them on an externality is somehow morally the same thing

It is.

>but it doesn't mean that they are factually the same thing.

First of all, the meaning of words and political concepts are never factual.

But I'd still argue that at a high level they are the same, and both are subsidies. In both cases the government refuses money it would otherwise collect from different parties, thereby gifting those entities value you can put a price tag on.

Those decisions are active decisions NOT to do something (while doing something about the same thing or very similar things when it comes to other parts of the population), at least at this point.

The only distinction I'd make is between direct subsidies (the government forks over money) and indirect/implicit subsidies (the government decides not to make certain entities pay for certain things for which other entities have to pay the government).

">but it doesn't mean that they are factually the same thing.

First of all, the meaning of words and political concepts are never factual."

You're still missing the point. The point is that there is a distinction between a subsidy and an externality and that distinction is important. It's important for measurement reasons (The exact monetary amount a government spends on something is easier to measure than the indirect cost of a policy,) and for simple communication reasons. It makes no sense to talk about instituting a tax to cover a subsidy. You institute a tax to cover an externality. It also matters because there are ways of dealing with externalities other than taxes and subsidies and reducing the language makes this more confusing. It's especially confusing when the distinction is made in one discussion (about renewables) but not in the other (about fossil fuels.)

There is a term for using an unexpected definition for a word that already has a widely used definition during a discussion, that is a 'stipulative definition'. It's dishonest to do so without being clear upfront or in response to a discussion where the original definition is in use. This results in equivocation. Whether or not a subsidy is morally equivalent to an externality is a moot point if you're willing toss about with the language. My work involves financial reporting and if my employer asked for one set of numbers and I gave him another that I argued were 'morally equivalent' would pretty clearly be in the wrong, even if the point I was making about moral equivalence was correct.

No, you're splitting hairs.

There are direct and indirect subsidies. Indirect subsidies include externalities: external costs paid by everyone else (that the government should be incentivizing reductions in by requiring the folks causing them to pay)

Semantic digressions aside, they're earning while everyone else pays costs resultant from their operations (and from our apparent inability to allocate with e.g. long term security, health, and prosperity as primary objectives for the public sphere)

Handing money to polluters helps polluters, and failing to disincentivize externalities also helps polluters, but it's OK to call one thing a subsidy and the other thing poor governance.

"Subsidy" carries a connotation of purposeful action to help something. Subsidizing a bad thing is worse than merely allowing it to happen or looking the other way. It seems like you want to re-label things in "B" by the label for "A" to make it sound worse.

>"Subsidy" carries a connotation of purposeful action to help something.

Purpouseful action implies awareness and intention.

Externality implies not yet recognized.

Having 2 words for similar concepts does not mean they are different concepts. "heavy" and "massive" are two different words but they convey essentially the same thing.

I would agree that unrecognized externalities are not subsidies, say CO2 pollution before it was recognized, but then again since they were literally not recognized as externalities (yet).

But the very moment CO2 pollution is recognized, the previously unrecognized externality is to be instantly viewed as a subsidy.

History repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy, from then on as a farce.

For that logic to work we would need e.g. a carbon tax, such that there would be a straightforward monetary value associated with any exceptions that might be granted.