Its joint report, titled “The Fossil Fuel Bailout”, has also claimed that the G20 nations are collectively handing out $88 billion in fossil fuel exploration subsidies.

While both mainstream and left-leaning media outlets reiterated the report’s controversial findings without questioning them yesterday, the report’s Australia-related coverage worryingly cited the June 2014 Australia Institute study titled “Mining in the Age of Entitlement”.

Industry chambers and lobby groups have sounded warnings about AI’s research to date.

“By their own admission, the Australia Institute are serial peddlers of economic falsehoods on mining, having been forced to admit recently that they included false economic evidence in multiple submissions lodged against mining projects in New South Wales,” the NSW Minerals Council said last week.

“Other claims the Australia Institute have made on mining have been contradicted by the Productivity Commission, the Commonwealth Treasury, the NSW Treasury, and former heads of the NSW Treasury and ABARE,” NSWMC CEO Stephen Galilee said.

“Their economic credentials are therefore non-existent and their claims should not be taken seriously.”

In terms of Australia’s oil and gas industry, the “bailout” report claimed that companies made net losses that totalled $47 billion in 2013.

However, the report seemingly equated project building investment with losses as it claimed that Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects operator Chevron “lost” the most at $US10.4 billion last year.

The report also criticised Prime Minister Tony Abbott for being “intent on the further expansion of coal production despite its environmental impacts”