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Skovgaard on commitments to reform fossil fuel subsidies

Jakob Skovgaard has co-authored the article “Reforming fossil fuel subsidies requires a new approach to setting international commitments” in the journal One Earth. The article argues that international efforts to phase out fossil fuel subsidies can be strengthened by distinguishing between different subsidies, taking into account their climate impacts and the feasibility of reform.

As the climate negotiations start to address the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on subsidizing oil, gas and coal, the article looks into what we can learn from existing commitments to phase out such subsidies. 

These commitments have failed to lower fossil fuel subsidies, inter alia because they address all fossil fuel subsidies in identical ways and countries have watered down commitments since they do not want to be held accountable to reforms they cannot implement. But fossil fuels are not identical: some are extremely difficult to reform, others less so. And some are more environmentally damaging than others (e.g. subsidies for new coal production) 

Therefore, the article calls for distinguishing between fossil fuel subsidies in international commitments, e.g. on the basis of climate impact and how easy to reform they are.

Read more about the article on ScienceDirect’s website

Jakob Skovgaard’s personal page