Who cares about outcomes?

Politicians are skilled at doing the exact opposite of what they make us think they're doing. The policymaking process in the public mind is a tedious discussion of organizational structures, organizational funding, and regulation. The tedium is so ingrained that few of us take a deep interest unless we're being paid to. It's probably deliberate, at some level. So when politicians say they want to cut back on subsidies paid for fossil fuel consumption, it shouldn't really shock us that not only are such subsidies still being paid, they're actually increasing. The International Energy Agency tells us that:

The IEA’s latest estimates indicate that fossil-fuel consumption subsidies worldwide amounted to $544 billion in 2012, up from $523 billion in 2011, with subsidies to oil products representing over half of the total.World Energy Investment Outlook 2014, IEA, June 2014

As pointed out here, this is four times the level of aid given by the OECD's Development Assistance Committee ($134 billion in 2013).