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Producer Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Producer subsidies are put in place to cut costs for fossil fuel producers. Some examples include tax breaks, public finance allocated specifically for fossil fuel production, and subsidies to state-owned enterprises.

Hope on the horizon: Will the G-20 really start the final countdown on unsustainable energy subsidies?

November 8, 2010 | Cees van Beers , André de Moor
For decades there has existed a community of researchers – spanning government ministries, international organisations, academia and civil society – working to increase the world’s understanding and awareness of harmful subsidies. Since September 2009, when the G-20 committed to phase out and rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that lead to wasteful consumption and distorted long-term energy investments, much attention has turned to the subject. Marking just over a year after this agreement was reached, and in the run-up to the G-20’s Seoul Summit on 11−12 November, Subsidy Watch contacted Professor Cees van Beers and André de Moor, part of the fossil-fuel subsidy research community since the 1990s, and asked for a retrospective: how far have we come and how far have we yet to go?

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Energy subsidies in the context of sustainable development

September 12, 2010 | Opec Secretariat
Editor’s introduction: in late 2009 and early 2010, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) helped prepare a Joint Report, Analysis of the Scope of Energy Subsidies and Suggestions for the G-20 Initiative, in partnership with the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank. The purpose of the study was to analyse “the scope of energy subsidies” and provide suggestions for the G-20’s initiative to phase out and rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption, and it was submitted to the G-20 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Toronto, Canada, on 26-27 June 2010. In this article, the OPEC Secretariat explains its findings and perspective on the role of energy subsidies and their relationship with sustainable development.

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Commentary: APEC Speaks: how Asia-Pacific economies plan to address fossil-fuel subsidy reform

July 18, 2010
The Leaders' Declaration from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation's (APEC) 17th Economic Leaders' Meeting, released on 15 November 2009, included a commitment to "rationalize and phase out over the medium term fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption, while recognising the importance of providing those in need with essential energy services." This closely mirrors the language of the Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (G-20), who announced their own commitment to phase out and rationalize fossil-fuel subsidies at their Pittsburgh Summit on 25 September 2009.

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The Public Goods Paradigm and the EU's Common Agricultural Policy

May 17, 2010 | Valentin Zahrnt
From the outside, the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) may look immutable. The only major effect of the reform passed by farm ministers in 2009, dubbed the ‘Health Check', was to dissipate more serious ambitions for change for the rest of the EU long-term budget (2007–2013).

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Commentary: A Grain of Salt Needed with Promises of Cheap Desalination

January 7, 2010 | Peter Gleick , Heather Cooley
The irony of water scarcity on a planet 70% covered by ocean does make us gaze longingly at the seas as the ultimate answer. The public, politicians and water authorities continue to hope that cost-effective and environmentally friendly desalination - the removal of salt from seawater to make it drinkable - will come to the rescue of water-scarce regions.

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