The US, the world’s biggest energy consumer, should use the opportunity created by the recent drop in oil prices to raise petrol taxes, according to the International Monetary Fund.

This would prevent pollution and the wild swings in oil price that jeopardise world economic growth, the IMF said in a report to Group of Seven finance ministers meeting this week in Singapore. In the report, which was seen by Expansion, the FT’s sister paper, the IMF argued that low prices at the petrol pump “encouraged excessive consumption with adverse environmental implications”.