Hardback : £30.02
Fossil fuel subsidies are killing both people and the planet. By encouraging excessive consumption of fossil fuels, subsidies exacerbate pollution and climate change, make violent protests more likely, and waste huge sums that could be used far better. Yet for years there has been minimal progress in eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. This book explains what fossil fuel subsidies are, how they inflict harm and what steps are being taken to reduce them. It also shows why subsidies persist and why existing efforts have been so ineffective. Drawing lessons from countries which have tried to remove fossil fuel subsidies, it explains that the fundamental challenge to reform is not technical, but political. The catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic and the tragic war in Ukraine illustrate that fossil fuel subsidy reform will only succeed where it supports the achievement of things that really matter politically - energy security, protection from climate change, better air quality, and resources to improve people’s lives. The book lays out a new agenda for action on fossil fuel subsidies, showing how a better understanding of the underlying political incentives can lead to more effective approaches to tackling this major global problem.
Fossil fuel subsidies are killing both people and the planet. By encouraging excessive consumption of fossil fuels, subsidies exacerbate pollution and climate change, make violent protests more likely, and waste huge sums that could be used far better. Yet for years there has been minimal progress in eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. This book explains what fossil fuel subsidies are, how they inflict harm and what steps are being taken to reduce them. It also shows why subsidies persist and why existing efforts have been so ineffective. Drawing lessons from countries which have tried to remove fossil fuel subsidies, it explains that the fundamental challenge to reform is not technical, but political. The catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic and the tragic war in Ukraine illustrate that fossil fuel subsidy reform will only succeed where it supports the achievement of things that really matter politically - energy security, protection from climate change, better air quality, and resources to improve people’s lives. The book lays out a new agenda for action on fossil fuel subsidies, showing how a better understanding of the underlying political incentives can lead to more effective approaches to tackling this major global problem.
1. Introduction
2. What are fossil fuel subsidies and how big are they?
3. The impact of fossil fuel subsidies
4. Why subsidies persist
5. What is being done and why it's not working
6. Countries are doing it for themselves
7. COVID, War, and Build Back Worse
8. A new approach to FFSR
9. Conclusions
'Neil McCulloch's Stopping Fossil Fuel Subsidies is well worth
reading because it takes seriously the complexities of the problem.
McCulloch recognises the importance of this topic for plenary
protection, but his primary lens is the complex politics and ground
realities that lead to political lock-in in fossil fuel subsidising
countries. Instead of espousing an abstract global rationality to
removing fossil fuel subsidies, he focuses on the need to
understand country contexts - the consumption subsidies, the
political campaign contributions, the lack of credibility of
alternative support - that make fossil fuel removal political
fraught. This is the right starting point. Only once he gets
'beneath the surface', as he puts it, does he offer practical,
manageable, steps toward reform; steps that take seriously the real
political economies of real places and the need to avoid impacts on
the poorest. Written in crisp and accessible prose, and sprinkled
with country examples, McCulloch's is the best and most accessible
text I have seen on the thorny, yet essential challenge of removing
fossil fuel subsidies.'
Professor Navroz Dubash, Centre for Policy Research
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