 This is Europe's man on the moon moment. That is how, in December of 2019, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the European Green Deal. 2020 was supposed to be the year that the EU would launch its ambitious plan to tackle the climate crisis. Yet the actions of many of its member states show a pattern of climate hypocrisy. There is an elephant in the room and it's called fossil fuel subsidies. Even as European governments call for climate action around the world, at home they continue to spend astronomical amounts of money in gifts that support the use of fossil fuels. More than 137 billion euros per year, according to calculations, by investigate Europe's reporters. It has been argued that behind each tax break and subsidy for fossil fuels, you have a lobby. Aligned against the European Green Deal are powerful pressure groups seeking to maintain the status quo. They lobby for tax exceptions for the car aviation and shipping industries, subsidies for energy intensive steel, cement and aluminium producers and agribusiness companies and the capacity market mechanism through which many countries give billions to coal and gas powered plants even when they don't produce energy, just to be on standby. But is it perhaps possible to achieve the EU's stated target of reducing emissions by 40% without phasing out fossil fuel subsidies? Investigate Europe posed that simple question to European Commission Vice President Franz Temmermans. His answer? No. Ultimately, the power to end fossil fuel subsidies is in the hands of member states, our national governments. The alternative is a world that continues to warm dangerously and a Europe that is little more than a graveyard of obsolete technologies and empty words.