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SUBSIDY WATCH BLOG

Explore news, commentary and analysis related to subsidies and sustainable development.

A Low-Hanging Fruit for Financing and Implementing SDGs: End Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Phase-out and reallocation of fossil fuel subsidies (FFS) is a low-hanging fruit for financing and implementing SDGs. First, it has a diverse support base of both sustainable development advocates and “government downsizers.” Second, instead of requiring financing like many sustainable development policies, it could free up hundreds of billions of dollars for implementing multiple SDGs.

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A Solar Journey: Reaching the remotest villages

​The absence of a road initiated a journey to a remote village located in a forest in Odisha, India. The village, Sarda Gram Panchayat, is actually a cluster of five villages and is located in a dense forest near the Sambalpur District of Odisha. The remoteness of the villages has severed ties to development work—energy access, education, health facilities and other services all have hit a roadblock.

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Blog: Learning from Leaders: How experts shed light on fossil fuel subsidy reform at COP 22

Cooperative, non-market and country-led—that was the order of the day when it came to fossil fuel subsidy reform (FFSR) at the UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) from November 7–19 in Marrakech, Morocco. Across the two weeks, the conference attracted some 22,500 participants, and there were several side events held in English and French on the issue of FFSR (a full listing is available here). Events and discussions covering FFSR focused on early action and implementation of the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies given the current window of opportunity afforded by low oil prices. They addressed lowering the total value of fossil fuel subsidies to consumers, reducing the cost to governments of reform, as well as efforts to phase out upstream subsidies to fossil fuel producers.

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Naked Budgets: A fiscal argument to save the climate

Two news stories this week, emerging from either side of the Atlantic, encapsulate the climate change conundrum. The message coming from hundreds of civil society organizations, scientists and policy-makers gathered at the climate change conference in Marrakech (COP 22) has been the fact that, in order to keep climate change within 2 degrees, three quarters of the known reserves of oil, gas and coal need to stay in the ground.

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Commentary: Winter Approaches: The Real Test for Ukraine's Energy Subsidy Reforms

In the past few weeks and months, Ukrainian media has been peppered with diametrically opposed pieces of analysis and commentary on energy pricing and energy subsidy reform. On one side, the central government, with the support of international donors, as well as Naftogaz, the national gas supplier, is running an information campaign on why energy subsidy reform is a much-needed move for Ukraine. On the other side, there are continued reports of city councils and populist parties' activists protesting against the “unconstitutional” decision of the central government to increase tariffs for gas and electricity according to an accelerated schedule.

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Commentary: What Can You Afford in a Year Without Fuel Subsidies? Financing Development with the Reallocation of Indonesia’s Gasoline and Diesel Subsidies

For a long time, the international community has talked about the benefits that can be created by removing wasteful fossil-fuel subsidies and freeing up expenditure for more worthwhile things—but little analysis has looked at how this works out in practice.  In large part, this is because so few countries, including among the G-20, have implemented ambitious and successful reforms.

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Government Subsidies to Fossil Fuels are 22 Times Larger than Government Support to Adaptation on Climate Change

25 May—Bonn, Germany—Over the last two weeks, countries met in Bonn to discuss the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Fiscal instruments—such as fossil fuel subsidy reform, fuel duty and carbon taxation—were raised throughout the meeting, which was supported by the Global Subsidies Initiative of IISD and the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform (Friends of FFSR). 

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Feeding the Dragon: Time to embark on wholesale coal subsidy reform in China?

20-21 April—Beijing—Coal remains central to the energy sector in China despite the impact on air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Recognizing the problems associated with coal use, China has embarked on a programme to gradually reduce the role of coal and develop cleaner forms of energy.  A key first step to breaking the hold of coal on the energy sector is to stop providing subsidies to the industry.

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