Governments across the G20 countries are estimated to be spending $88 billion every year subsidising exploration for fossil fuels. Their exploration subsidies marry bad economics with potentially disastrous consequences for climate change. In effect, governments are propping up the development of oil, gas and coal reserves that cannot be exploited if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change.
This report identifies billions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuel exploration from the world's wealthiest countries. This government support for expanding oil, gas, and coal reserves continues despite a 2009 commitment by G20 countries to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, a pledge that has been repeatedly reiterated since then, including by G7 leaders in their June 2014 declaration.
The pace and scale of oil sands mining continues to increase in Alberta despite a poor understanding of the environmental liabilities: costs associated with the environmental impacts throughout the life of a mine. In Toxic Liability, the Pembina Institute has compiled the first public estimate of these liabilities.
The Inventory Of Estimated Budgetary Support and Tax Expenditure for Fossil Fuels 2013 collects details on more than 550 fossil fuel support measures in the 34 OECD member countries, including many provided by state and provincial governments. The report also highlights progress made and the benefits identified by a number of OECD countries in reforming support to fossil fuels in recent years. It updates an earlier report released in 2011.
For the first time ever, the OECD has compiled an inventory of over 250 measures that support fossil-fuel production or use in 24 industrialised countries, which together account for 95% of energy supply in OECD countries. Those measures had an overall value of about USD 45-75 billion a year between 2005 and 2010. In absolute terms, nearly half of this amount benefitted petroleum products (i.e.
Discussion of fiscal regimes for oil extraction have traditionally focused on the total charges of all sorts levied on a project (the "total government take"), and whether their level and structure optimised oil production and public revenues. Yet national, or global, policies to meet energy and environmental goals need to maximize benefits across complex energy and economic systems, not just specific projects. This study argues that there is a need to reframe the debate on how fiscal regimes - notably tax and royalties - to fossil-fuel extraction are evaluated. It further
This study aims to reduce this complex debate to two simple questions: how much money are Canadian federal and provincial governments spending to support liquid biofuels—fuel-grade ethanol and biodiesel—and does it represent good value-for-money to Canadian taxpayers?
It is one of a series of reports undertaken by the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) examining government support for biofuels in selected countries.
Søren Dyck-Madsen, Danish Ecological Council. Assesses effects of shifting Danish tax base to resources and polluting behavior, with switchover fully implemented in 2010. Contains historical data on many Danish green fees.