Comment A bunch of class warfare politics. (Score 4, Insightful) 126
These researchers certainly appear to be twisting the definition of a "subsidy" beyond rationality in order to push an anti-capitalist class-warfare perspective:
"Airlines produced a billion tonnes of CO2 and benefited from a $100bn (£75bn) subsidy by not paying for the climate damage they caused, the researchers estimated."
"The researchers estimated the cost of the climate damage caused by aviation’s emissions at $100bn in 2018. The absence of payments to cover this damage 'represents a major subsidy to the most affluent', the researchers said."
"The benefits of aviation are more inequitably shared across the world than probably any other major emission source."
"The rich have had far too much freedom to design the planet according to their wishes."
This doesn't pass my sniff test for objective academic analysis, but apparently this is what gets published in the 4th-ranked environmental sciences journal these days.