Industry-specific reviews of government subsidies have been much more common than analyses examining several natural resource sectors at once. Yet there is a great deal of overlap across sectors. Indeed, it is the combination of support provided by multiple levels of government and government…
Even California has scores of policies and programs with the potential to subsidize oil and gas exploration, production, refining, transport, and consumption. These conflict with the state's long-term commitment to be a clean energy leader. Earth Track reviewed the policy environment in the state to…
An overview on the varied approaches used to subsidize industries and how the scale of support flowing to fossil fuels and other environmentally harmful activities undermines efforts to decarbonize the economy and protect global biodiversity. The slides highlight how at present subsidies to fossil…
Industrial subsidies take on a growing importance in trade discussions. Yet assessing the scope and scale of government interventions in manufacturing remains notoriously difficult due to a persistent lack of reliable and comparable data. With many governments failing to provide sufficient…
This article was originally published onBloomberg Tax here. Reproduced with permission. Published January 13, 2023. Copyright 2023 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033)
Despite calls for the reform of incentives, including subsidies, harmful to biodiversity, including under the Convention on Biological Diversity and its 2011-2020 Aichi Targets, very few countries to date have undertaken what is considered the first step in this process, namely, to identify and…
Doug Koplow (Earth Track) and Greg LeRoy (Good Jobs First)
Posted on:
12/2/2022
The discussion of this topic within the Boston Area Sustainability Group started with reflections on the effectiveness of incentives to accelerate adoption of sustainability-minded solutions (e.g., residential/community solar, electric cars) and the creation of green jobs. That path quickly led…
From 2010 to 2021, the United States’ major trade and development finance institutions, the U.S. Export Import Bank (EXIM) and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), provided almost five times as much support to fossil fuels as to renewables – USD 51.6 billion compared to USD 10.9…
As with earlier reports, The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2022 (WNISR2022) provides a comprehensive overview of global nuclear power plant data, including information on age, operation, production, and construction of reactors. But due to the unprecedented situation in Ukraine, WNISR2022…
Ron Steenblik and Doug Koplow join the Cosmopolicast (part of the Cosmopolitan Globalist) and hosts Claire Berlinski and Vivek Y. Kelkar for an hour of discussion about energy subsidies and environmentally-harmful subsidies. How did we end up working on this issue? How big are they? How can people…
Harvard Management Company is responsible for investing the Harvard endowment. The annual Climate Report is the primary way that HMC communicates with the general public on its actions to move the portfolio to net zero by 2050. Though this is the second year the Climate Report has been produced…
The removal of fossil fuel subsidies (FFS) would bring about many important and positive effects, among them helping to reduce air pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change and improving government’s finances. It could also reduce distortions affecting trade in not only…
Multinational firms often use complicated corporate structures and arcane provisions of the tax code to minimize or eliminate their global tax payments. Arcane changes in tax rules can give rise to big losses in tax revenues to country treasuries, as happened in the 2017 tax law passed under the…
The author examined support by provincial and federal governments in Canada to three major pipeline projects, none of which has been completed to date. At least eight different types of financial support measures provided for Trans Mountain, two for Keystone XL, and two for Coastal GasLink…
In the third edition of PennFuture’s Fossil Fuel Subsidy Report, the authors quantify Pennsylvania’s fossil fuel subsidies in a step-by-step analysis of three subsidy types. Part One reviews Forgone Revenues including the underpricing of government-owned resources, tax credits, and tax…
The United States has supported the development of its oil and gas industry since the early twentieth century. Despite repeated pledges to phase out 'inefficient' fossil fuel subsidies, US oil and gas production continues to be subsidized by billions of dollars each year. In this study, we quantify…
Harvard has the largest university endowment in the world. Its investments are run by the affiliated Harvard Management Company (HMC), which operates under the Treasurer of the University and the Harvard Corporation. The University has committed that the endowment will be net zero greenhouse gas…
Yuki Matsumoto, Taku Nemoto, Jehan Sauvage, and Christian Steidl,
Posted on:
7/12/2021
The support that governments provide to their industrial producers has been a growing source of concern. Much of that support is provided by governments through the financial system, either in the form of below‑market borrowings or below-market equity. To better understand the nature and scale of…
This analysis looks at the last two decades of investment data for US oil and gas fields to evaluate how major federal subsidies may have played a role in the huge boom in US oil and gas production. It finds that federal subsidies amplified the expected financial returns of investing in…
Harvard Management Company (HMC), which manages Harvard University’s nearly $42 billion endowment, released its first Climate Report in February 2021. As the largest university endowment in the world, decisions Harvard makes to tangibly and materially reduce the climate impact of its investments…