Publication or article

Roberts' review of various estimates of US subsidies to fossil fuels included a section, excerpted below, on the analysis jointly done by SEI and Earth Track that was published in Nature Energy in 2017:

..."The effects of consumption subsidies are fairly well-understood, as it is fairly easy to aggregate consumer decisions and find patterns. But the effects of production subsidies are trickier to pin down; it is difficult to tie particular background subsidies to particular investment decisions by producers.

..."Dominion Resources began work in October at Cove Point, the shipping terminal that the company plans to convert into an export facility for natural gas. The ambitious $3.8 billion project will involve about a thousand workers a year over several years.

"A package of legislation that represents a last chance to avoid severe climate crisis impacts was dramatically defanged late last week by conservative West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin...

Despite Manchin’s cost-conscious approach — he has demanded a reduced $1.5 trillion price tag for the bill — he has fought to preserve domestic fossil fuel industry subsidies. On the potential repeal of international oil and gas subsidies put into place during the Trump administration, Manchin has been silent.

Excerpt, referencing Earth Track's study on EHS, done in conjunction with The B Team and Business for Nature:

"A few decades ago, huge subsidies meant vast swathes of the country’s marginal land was cleared for grazing, fertilizer was overused, and the sheep population boomed to the point where surplus meat had to be destroyed. 

...Much of the air at COP15 was sucked up by discussions on closing that financial gap. They centered around three tense issues:

1) How much money will the world commit, in total, to biodiversity conservation each year?

2) How much of that money will wealthy nations give to developing countries?

3) Who will manage and distribute the money?

While the Climate Home News didn't credit Earth Track in it's article, our analysis of environmentally harmful subsidies played a central role in CHN's discussion of both the challenges to, and potential from, EHS reform during the COP15 deliberations. Excerpt below:

"With one week left to strike a “once-in-a-generation” deal to protect nature in Montreal, Canada, governments are split over how to stop subsidising harmful activities like unsustainable fisheries and agriculture.

Negotiators have proposed targets to protect roughly one-third of the planet as part of UN talks aimed at striking a global deal to reverse the destruction of nature...

As well as setting out conservation goals, the draft text proposes tripling the amount of international finance by 2030, pledging $200bn annually to increase global biodiversity. This would include increasing contributions from developed economies to developing economies to at least $20bn per year by 2025, and $30bn per year by 2030.

The UN development chief has warned against “illogical” and “perverse” subsidies to industries estimated at $1.8tn that harm the planet, as the body pushes for a global deal to reverse the widespread destruction of nature...

Speaking to the Financial Times from Montreal, Achim Steiner, the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, said government subsidies were contributing to biodiversity loss by encouraging unsustainable farming and fishing practices.

The oil industry has often said that dilbit, a heavy crude oil from Canada’s tar sands, isn’t much different from conventional crude oil. But when it comes to paying into a federal fund used to clean up oil spills, it’s different enough to deserve a sizeable tax break.

Dilbit is exempt from the tax, because the 1980 legislation that created the tax states that “the term crude oil does not include synthetic petroleum, e.g., shale oil, liquids from coal, tar sands, or biomass…” This position was upheld in an 2011 IRS-issued Technical Advice Memorandum.

Even as Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz convened a “summit” to discuss more governmental assistance to the nation’s troubled nuclear power plants, the recent announcement by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that it is selling its northern Alabama site containing the unbuilt Bellefonte reactors should have sobered the summiteers.