Australia and its fellow G20 nations are "paying fossil fuel producers to undermine their own policies on climate change", a British think tank says.
In a report released on Thursday, the Overseas Development Institute questioned why the Australian government continued to provide more than $5 billion a year to support fossil fuel production, despite a G20 commitment to phase out subsidies six years ago. 
The report, titled Empty Promises: G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production, comes ahead of the G20 summit in Turkey on   November 15, and says that G20 governments collectively spend more than $640 billion a year to support the production of fossil fuels - almost four times the total of global subsidies for renewable energy.
"The G20 committed for the first time in 2009 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. Six years later, very little has happened," said Shelagh Whitley of the Overseas Development Institute, which jointly published the report with US-based Oil Change International.
According to the report, "production subsidies" are national subsidies through direct spending and tax breaks, investments by majority state-owned enterprises and public finance from majority government-owned institutions.
The report specifically excludes support to consumption of fossil fuels and consumption of fossil fuel-based electricity.
Russia topped its list for production subsidies, averaging around $23 billion each year, followed by the US at more than $20 billion, Britain $9 billion, China just over $3 billion and Brazil about $5 billion.
Australian Conservation Foundation economist Matthew Rose said the report's findings about Australia were shocking but unsurprising. "It's in the budget every year. The fuel tax credit scheme is a majority of that money, but it's usually over $5 billion every year that we use to subsidise fuel of large corporations," he said.
The Australian Conservation Foundation estimates that federal budget handouts that encourage pollution will total $47 billion between 2014-15 and 2017-18.
Resources and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said Australia supported G20 efforts to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. The fuel tax credits system was not a subsidy, he said.