Fossil fuel subsidies

Fossil-fuel subsidies per capita, 2019. Fossil-fuel pre-tax subsidies per capita are measured in constant US dollars.
Fossil-fuel subsidies as a share of GDP, 2019. Fossil-fuel pre-tax subsidies are given as a share of total gross domestic product.

Fossil fuel subsidies are energy subsidies on fossil fuels. They may be tax breaks on consumption, such as a lower sales tax on natural gas for residential heating; or subsidies on production, such as tax breaks on exploration for oil. Or they may be free or cheap negative externalities; such as air pollution or climate change due to burning gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Some fossil fuel subsidies are via electricity generation, such as subsidies for coal-fired power stations.

Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies would reduce the health risks of air pollution,[1] and would greatly reduce global carbon emissions thus helping to limit climate change.[2] As of 2021, policy researchers estimate that substantially more money is spent on fossil fuel subsidies than on environmentally harmful agricultural subsidies or environmentally harmful water subsidies.[3] The International Energy Agency says: "High fossil fuel prices hit the poor hardest, but subsidies are rarely well-targeted to protect vulnerable groups and tend to benefit better-off segments of the population."[4]

Despite the G20 countries having pledged to phase-out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies,[5] as of 2023 they continue because of voter demand,[6][7] or for energy security.[8] Global fossil fuel consumption subsidies in 2022 have been estimated at one trillion dollars;[4] although they vary each year depending on oil prices, they are consistently hundreds of billions of dollars.[9]

  1. ^ "Local Environmental Externalities due to Energy Price Subsidies: A Focus on Air Pollution and Health" (PDF). World Bank.
  2. ^ "Fossil fuel subsidies: If we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we should not pay people to burn fossil-fuels". Our World in Data. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
  3. ^ "Protecting Nature by Reforming Environmentally Harmful Subsidies: The Role of Business | Earth Track". www.earthtrack.net. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  4. ^ a b "Fossil Fuels Consumption Subsidies 2022 – Analysis". IEA. 16 February 2023. Retrieved 16 February 2023.
  5. ^ "Update on recent progress in reform of inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption" (PDF). 2021.
  6. ^ George, Johannes Urpelainen and Elisha (14 July 2021). "Reforming global fossil fuel subsidies: How the United States can restart international cooperation". Brookings. Retrieved 26 February 2022.
  7. ^ Martinez-Alvarez, Cesar B.; Hazlett, Chad; Mahdavi, Paasha; Ross, Michael L. (22 November 2022). "Political leadership has limited impact on fossil fuel taxes and subsidies". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 119 (47): e2208024119. Bibcode:2022PNAS..11908024M. doi:10.1073/pnas.2208024119. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 9704748. PMID 36375060.
  8. ^ Brower, Derek; Wilson, Tom; Giles, Chris (25 February 2022). "The new energy shock: Putin, Ukraine and the global economy". Financial Times. Retrieved 26 February 2022.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference :5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).