Every year governments spend $543 billion subsidising fossil-fuels to consumers. A new report on Fossil-Fuel Subsidies and Climate Change from the GSI published by the Nordic Council of Ministers finds that removing these subsidies could lead to global GHG emissions reductions of between 6-13% by 2050.
With potential domestic savings to some governments of between 5-30% of expenditures, and in the context of the low oil price many governments are removing subsidies. This report shows how to include national emissions reduction estimates within country contributions towards the UNFCCC using the Global Subsidies Initiative – Integrated Fiscal (GSI-IF) model.
The report has been written by Laura Merrill, Melissa Harris, Liesbeth Casier and Andrea M. Bassi for the International Institute for Sustainable Development. It was presented to country policy makers at the Climate talks in Geneva Feb 8-13, 2015.
Download the report Fossil-Fuel Subsidies and Climate Change: Options for policy-makers within their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions
The report is financed as part of the Nordic Prime Ministers’ green growth initiative. The first report in this project under the initiative was entitled Reform of Fossil-fuel Subsidies: Nordic Cooperation on fossil-fuel subsidy reform in developing countries - Assessing Options and Opportunities.