Download or read book Tackling Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Climate Change written by Merrill, Laura and published by Nordic Council of Ministers. This book was released on 2015-10-21 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report presents research on fossil fuel subsidy reform across 20 countries and reveals an average reduction in national GHG emissions of 11% by 2020 from potential reform, and savings of USD 93 per tonne of CO2. With modest recycling of resources to renewables and energy efficiency, reductions can be improved. Countries are including reforms in contributions towards a climate agreement. Authored by the Global Subsidies Initiative as part of the Nordic Prime Ministers' green growth initiative www.norden.org/greengrowth

Download or read book Tackling Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Climate Change written by Laura Merrill and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report presents research on fossil fuel subsidy reform across 20 countries and reveals an average reduction in national GHG emissions of 11% by 2020 from potential reform, and savings of USD 93 per tonne of CO2. With modest recycling of resources to renewables and energy efficiency, reductions can be improved. Countries are including reforms in contributions towards a climate agreement. Authored by the Global Subsidies Initiative as part of the Nordic Prime Ministers' green growth initiative www.norden.org/greengrowth [Elib].

Download or read book The Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Their Reform written by Jakob Skovgaard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume provides the first book-length account on the politics of fossil fuel subsidies. This title is also available as Open Access.

Download or read book Fit for Purpose Toward trade rules that support fossil fuel subsidy reform and the clean energy transition written by van Asselt, Harro and published by Nordic Council of Ministers. This book was released on 2020-11-18 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available online: https://pub.norden.org/temanord2020-539/ Estimated at USD 478 billion in 2019, fossil fuel subsidies strain the public purse, contribute to climate change, slow the uptake of renewable energy, and lead to local air pollution and associated impacts on public health. Their reform could thus lead to a wide range of socioeconomic and environmental benefits. Despite its binding rules to regulate subsidies, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has so far failed to play any significant role in constraining government support to fossil fuels. Against this backdrop, this report explores whether WTO rules and practices are fit for purpose in addressing fossil fuels subsidies and supporting the clean energy transition, and how they could be reformed to more effectively contribute to these key objectives. It also offers practical recommendations for WTO members and other stakeholders interested in moving this agenda forward.

Download or read book Tackling Fossil Fuel Subsidies Through International Trade Agreements written by Cleo Verkuijl and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fossil fuel subsidies undercut the international community's Sustainable Development Goals and climate change objectives in many ways. Estimated at several hundred billion dollars a year, such subsidies also affect fossil fuel prices, and can therefore have distorting impacts on trade and investment. Given its central role in disciplining trade-distorting subsidies across sectors, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is an obvious candidate for advancing fossil fuel subsidy reform internationally. However, its engagement on this topic has been limited. While a growing body of disputes on renewable energy support measures have been brought before the WTO, Members have yet to initiate legal proceedings against subsidies for oil, coal or gas. This Article highlights the range of explanations for this puzzling discrepancy. The Article analyses the compatibility of four selected fossil fuel support measures in the Group of 20 countries with the WTO's 1994 Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. In doing so, it identifies some of the key legal questions and challenges faced at the WTO. Specifically, the findings highlight the difficulty of litigating fossil fuel consumption subsidies. In light of these shortcomings, the Article identifies five complementary avenues for reform of international trade policy to enable countries to better address fossil fuel subsidies: (i) promoting technical assistance and capacity building; (ii) enhancing transparency; (iii) pledging subsidy reform and ensuring credible follow-up through reporting and review; (iv) adopting a political declaration; and (v) expanding the category of prohibited subsidies. Some of these options could be pioneered by one or several WTO Members, or through regional, megaregional and plurilateral trade agreements. The adoption of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement represent a call for more decisive action on climate change and sustainable development, providing a clear mandate for deeper engagement of the international trade community in this space.

Download or read book Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reforms written by Jun Rentschler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-27 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Countries around the world are spending up to $500 billion per year on subsidising fossil fuel consumption. By some estimates, the G20 countries alone are spending around another $450 billion on subsidising fossil fuel production. In addition, the indirect social welfare costs of these subsidies have been shown to be substantial – for instance due to air pollution, road congestion, climate change, and economic inefficiency, to name a few. Considering these numbers, there is no doubt that fossil fuel subsidies cause severe economic distortions that compromise countries’ prospects of achieving equitable and sustainable development. This book provides a guide to the complex challenge of designing, assessing, and implementing effective fossil fuel subsidy reforms. It shows that subsidy reform requires a careful balancing of complex economic and political trade-offs, as well as measures to mitigate adverse effects on vulnerable households and to assist firms with implementing efficiency enhancing measures. Going beyond the purely fiscal perspective, this book emphasises that smart subsidy reforms can contribute to all three dimensions of sustainable development – environment, society, and economy. Over the course of eight chapters, this book considers a wide range of agents and stakeholders, markets, and policy measures in order to distil the key principles of designing effective fossil fuel subsidy reforms. This book will be of great relevance to scholars and policy makers with an interest in energy economics and policy, climate change policy, and sustainable development more broadly.

Download or read book Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform written by Vernon JC Rive and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This much-needed book provides an empirically-grounded, and theoretically informed account of international law sources, mechanisms, initiatives and institutions which address and affect the practice of subsidising fossil fuel consumption and production. Drawing on recent scholarship on emerging international governance mechanisms, ‘informal’ international law-making and regime interaction, it offers suggestions, and critiques suggestions of others, for how the international law framework could be employed more effectively and appropriately to respond to environmentally and fiscally harmful fossil fuel subsidies.

Download or read book Making the Switch written by Merrill, Laura and published by Nordic Council of Ministers. This book was released on 2017-05-10 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report estimates fossil fuel subsidies to be around USD 425 billion. Such subsidies represent large lost opportunities for governments to invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable development. Removal of consumer subsidies can lead to carbon emission reductions (6 to 8 per cent by 2050 globally), Reductions that can be improved further with a switch or a "SWAP" towards sustainable energy. This report describes the scale and impact of fossil fuel subsidies on sustainable development. It describes the SWAP concept to switch savings made from fossil fuel subsidy reform, towards sustainable energy, energy efficiency and safety nets. The report provides potential SWAP outlines for Bangladesh, Indonesia, Morocco and Zambia. "Making the Switch" was written for the Nordic Council Ministers by the Global Subsidies Initiative of IISD and Gaia Consulting.

Download or read book Cutting Emissions and Budget Deficits for a Post Pandemic World written by Roth, Joachim and published by Nordic Council of Ministers. This book was released on 2020-08-03 with total page 51 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available online: https://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:1456194 In 2020, the long-term crisis of climate change has been temporarily overshadowed by the COVID-19 emergency, pushing many governments into deep budget deficits. As countries mobilize funds to fight the pandemic and bolster their economies, it cannot be ignored that whatever measures are put in place to recover from the current crisis must not undermine efforts to tackle the longer term threat of climate change. Article 2.1.c of the Paris Agreement on climate change: “making finance flows consistent with a pathway toward low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development”, applies just as much now as before. This working paper explores how two fiscal tools, fossil fuel subsidies (FFS) and carbon pricing — putting a price on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through taxation or carbon markets, influence the signal sent to the market to align economic development with climate constraints. Fossil fuel subsidies act as a negative price on carbon and increase the risk of locking investment in fossil fuels that are incompatible with the low-carbon transition required to meet the Paris Agreement’s objectives. As we document in the report, the current coverage and levels of carbon pricing are also deeply insufficient to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement limiting the increase of the global average temperature to “well below 2°C” while “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C. This Working Paper explores the interplay between FFS reform and carbon pricing at the international and national levels. We note that effective carbon pricing, promoted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund, is a valuable tool to send effective carbon mitigation signals to the market. However, without including the impact of fossil fuel subsidies, these analyses present only a partial picture. These findings highlight the importance of increasing implicit and explicit carbon prices and reforming fossil fuel subsidies. In the context of the COVID-19 emergency, it is essential that governments, in a hurry to take action to boost their economies, don’t overlook the need to keep recovery stimulus policies aligned with climate goals.

Download or read book TemaNord written by Laura Merrill and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Economisation of Climate Change written by Jakob Skovgaard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The effort to address climate change cuts across a wide range of non-environmental actors and policy areas, including international economic institutions such as the Group of Twenty (G20), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). These institutions do not tend to address climate change so much as an environmental issue, but as an economic one, a dynamic referred to as 'economisation'. Such economisation can have profound consequences for how environmental problems are addressed. This book explores how the G20, IMF, and OECD have addressed climate finance and fossil fuel subsidies, what factors have shaped their specific approaches, and the consequences of this economisation of climate change. Focusing on the international level, it is a valuable resource for graduate students, researchers, and policymakers in the fields of politics, political economy and environmental policy.

Download or read book Swapping Fossil Fuel Subsidies for Sustainable Energy written by Richard Bridle and published by Nordic Council of Ministers. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Underpricing of fossil fuels, caused by subsidies, drives carbon intensive consumption. Reforming fossil fuel subsidies and allocating some of the savings to sustainable energy could accelerate a transition to fairer, safer, cleaner and more sustainable energy systems. This report outlines the Nordic Council of Ministers’ work to promote these swaps through the development of a business model and description of the link between fossil fuel subsidies, reforms and carbon emissions. The report evaluates potential swaps to increase industrial energy efficiency in the mining sector, in the context of energy sector reforms in Zambia; and the replacement of butane subsidies with solar investments in Morocco. The report also presents an outline of how Nordic countries are supporting reforms and driving the swaps agenda as part of Nordic Solutions to Global Challenges.

Download or read book Energy Subsidy Reform written by Mr.Benedict J. Clements and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Energy subsidies are aimed at protecting consumers, however, subsidies aggravate fiscal imbalances, crowd out priority public spending, and depress private investment, including in the energy sector. This book provides the most comprehensive estimates of energy subsidies currently available for 176 countries and an analysis of “how to do” energy subsidy reform, drawing on insights from 22 country case studies undertaken by the IMF staff and analyses carried out by other institutions.

Download or read book SuperFreakonomics LP written by Steven D. Levitt and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-11-10 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling more than four million copies. Now Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with SuperFreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that this freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first. SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? What's the best way to catch a terrorist? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Are people hardwired for altruism or selfishness? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically.

Download or read book Ending Fossil Fuels written by Holly Jean Buck and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ending the fossil fuel industry is the only credible path for climate policy Around the world, countries and companies are setting net-zero carbon emissions targets. But what will it mean if those targets are achieved? One possibility is that fossil fuel companies will continue to produce billions of tons of atmospheric CO2 while relying on a symbiotic industry to scrub the air clean. Focusing on emissions draws our attention away from the real problem: the point of production. The fossil fuel industry must come to an end but will not depart willingly; governments must intervene. By embracing a politics of rural-urban coalitions and platform governance, climate advocates can build the political power needed to nationalize the fossil fuel industry and use its resources to draw carbon out of the atmosphere.

Download or read book Tackling Fossil Fuel Subsidies Through International Trade Agreements written by Cleo Verkuijl and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Activism and the Fossil Fuel Industry written by Andrew Cheon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In less than a decade, activism against the fossil fuel industry has exploded across the globe. While environmentalists used to focus on legislative goals, such as carbon emissions trading or renewable energy policies, today the most prominent activists directly attack the fossil fuel industry. This timely book offers a comprehensive evaluation of different types of activism, the success and impact of campaigns and activities, and suggestions as to ways forward. This book is the first systematic treatment of the anti-fossil fuel movement in the United States. An accessible and readable text, it is an essential reference for scholars, policymakers, activists, and citizens interested in climate change, fossil fuels, and environmental sustainability. The entire book or chapters from it can be used as required or supplementary material in various courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. As the book is not technically challenging but contains a comprehensive review of climate change, fossil fuels, and the literature on environmental activism, it can be used as an accessible introduction to the anti-fossil fuel campaign across disciplines.