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…
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…
This report documents the scale of fossil fuel subsidies and sets out a practical agenda for their elimination in the context of the global goal of tackling climate change. It spells out the real costs of fossil fuel subsidies within the top developed-country emitters (the E11), the G20, and more…
Sara Gersen, Nina Robertson, Sylvia Chi, Jordan Diamond, Lisa Goldman, and John Pendergrass
Posted on:
10/1/2013
This analysis identifies a number of federal programs supporting coal, including some that while not directly targeted at coal provide significant benefit to the coal sector. In total these subsidies provided approximately $25.4 billion in financial support for coal production, transport, use, or…
This report describes organized attacks on climate science, scientists and scientific institutions like the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC), that have gone on for more than 20 years. It sets out some of the key moments in this campaign of climate denial started by the…
The EU biofuels industry has increased its use of palm oil by 365 per cent over 2006-2012, from 0.4 to 1.9 million tonnes per year. The additional demand can be linked primarily to the growth in biodiesel production stimulated by government policies (primarily purchase mandates) during the same…
Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt, Komei Hosokawa, Steve Thomas, Yukio Yamaguchi, and Julie Hazemann
Posted on:
9/20/2013
Two years after the Fukushima disaster started unfolding on 11 March 2011, its impact on the global nuclear industry has become increasingly visible. Global electricity generation from nuclear plants dropped by a historic 7 percent in 2012, adding to the record drop of 4 percent in 2011. This World…
Valsecchi C., ten Brink P., Bassi S., Withana S., Lewis M., Best A., Oosterhuis F., Dias Soares C., Rogers-Gante r H., Kaphengst T.
Posted on:
9/17/2013
This study is a contribution to the European Commission’s ongoing efforts to investigate and reform environmentally harmful subsidies (EHS). The report focused on three methodologies proposed by the OECD for the identification of EHS, the analysis of their impacts and the implications of their…
Withana, S., ten Brink, P., Franckx, L., Hirschnitz-Garbers, M., Mayeres, I., Oosterhuis, F., and Porsch, L.
Posted on:
9/17/2013
This study (main report - data annexes) led by IEEP and carried out in collaboration with IVM, Ecologic Institute and VITO aims to support the European Commission in implementing the call in the Resource Efficiency Roadmap to phase out EHS by 2020. The study identifies a number of existing EHS in…
Vanya Vulperhorst, Andrzej Bialas, Sarah Todd and Maria José Cornax
Posted on:
9/12/2013
The fishing industry in the European Union (EU) receives a significant amount of government subsidies, which have promoted the overcapacity of European fishing fleets, resulting in overfishing, and rendering fisheries in many European countries unprofitable and a poor investment for taxpayers. In 13…
Useful overview of ways the existing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) could be leveraged to expand transparency and reform of fossil fuel subsidies. Because there are a number of potential venues already extant under the UNFCCC that could be used, the chance to…
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…
In recent years the manufacturing of renewable-energy technologies has become truly global. The associated rise in international investment and trade in goods and services related to renewable energy has been rapid, but it has not always been smooth. Already there have been…
This report provides an overview of energy subsidies in the UK, starting with an overview of the basic economics, then identifying the scale of subsidies in the UK, and finally comparing the UK position with other countries.
Ideally, a thorough study on energy subsidies would track, for each branch…
U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Inspector General
Posted on:
6/14/2013
Coal-burning power plants generate about half of the Nation’s electrical power. About 40 percent of the Nation’s coal comes from public lands. As a result, coal mining on public lands is a significant source of revenue to the U.S. Government, and significantly contributes to the Nation’s power…
Christopher Beaton, Ivetta Gerasimchuk, Tara Laan, Kerryn Lang, Damon Vis-Dunbar, Peter Wooders
Posted on:
5/20/2013
There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for fossil-fuel subsidy reform-but there are a set of planning stages that are generic, along with many common issues, challenges and potential solutions. The Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development…
Since its creation of the domestic market for corn ethanol after the energy crisis of the 1970s, the federal government has nurtured and maintained the ethanol industry with a steady stream of subsidies. Originally sold as a way to achieve energy independence and reduce greenhouse gas emissions…
Energy subsidies have wide-ranging economic consequences. While aimed at protecting consumers, subsidies aggravate fiscal imbalances, crowd-out priority public spending, and depress private investment, including in the energy sector. Subsidies also distort resource allocation by encouraging…
The Department of Energy (DOE) is asking Congress to provide hundreds of millions in subsidies to commercialize small modular reactors (SMR). First proposed in the 2011 budget, the Administration has committed to providing more than $500 million dollars for licensing support and research and…
