Earth Track Document

Numbers ranging from half a trillion to two trillion dollars have been cited in recent years for global subsidies for fossil fuels. How are these figures calculated and why are they so different? The most commonly used methods for measuring subsidies are the price-gap approach-quantifying the gap between free-market reference prices and the prices charged to consumers-and the inventory approach, which constructs an inventory of government actions benefiting production and consumption of fossil fuels.

Government subsidies to energy producers, transporters, and consumers are widespread throughout the world and represent a large public investment in the energy sector. In theory, this investment could be funding a variety of social goals such as providing the poor with access to basic energy services and addressing common environmental problems linked to energy extraction and consumption.

Although some subsidies do address these types of concerns, most either do not, or do not do so effectively.

Presentation at a meeting sponsored by the Energy Research Institute of China's National Development and Reform Commission and the World Bank in Beijing, China.  The presentation reviews existing estimates of global subsidies to energy, including their magnitude, differences in estimation methods and assumptions, reporting trends, and emerging issues. 

We are grateful to the World Bank for making a Mandarin version of this presentation available as well.

The IEA is producing two detailed assessments on nuclear energy in the coming months.  The first, a chapter in their vaunted World Energy Outlook, will examine in detail the prospects and challenges to nuclear energy going forward.  The second, produced jointly with NEA, will update their Technology Roadmap series, examining options and impediments to scaling nuclear around the world.

Complex security, environmental, and economic trade-offs remain the norm for the energy sector.   Government intervention is also the norm, and too often involves a torrent of energy plans, white-papers, and legislation.  In an ideal world, government policies should work in tandem with market forces to achieve an adequate energy supply mix that is cleaner and more diverse than what preceded it.  These synergies do not currently exist.  Instead, there are thousands of government energy market interventions in place around the world - many of which act counte

Large natural gas finds off the coast of Israel create significant financial and energy challenges for a State long focused on high technology exports and alternative energy development.  To address these concerns, Israel has already implemented study commissions and proposed a Sovereign Wealth Fund (the "Citizens of Israel Fund").  This paper reviews the proposed structure of the Fund and a number of other core issues related to the gas finds such as how much to export, how to deploy revenues, and how the development will affect energy security.  It makes the follow

Keynote presentation at the Expert Workshop on Subsidies to Fossil Fuels and Climate Mitigation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), held at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC on January 14, 2014.  Slides review recent global estimates of fossil fuel subsidies, highlighting both the tallies and the reasons the estimates differ widely from one another. 

Special legislative provisions have allowed a select group of industries to operate as tax-favored publicly-traded partnerships (PTPs) more than 25 years after Congress stripped eligibility for most sectors of the economy. These firms, organized as Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), are heavily concentrated in the oil and gas industry. Selective access to valuable tax preferences distorts energy markets and creates impediments for substitute, non-fossil, forms of power, heating, and transport fuels.