The Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and their Reform

Description

Fossil fuel subsidies strain public budgets, and contribute to climate change and local air pollution. Despite widespread agreement among experts about the benefits of reforming fossil fuel subsidies, repeated international commitments to eliminate them, and valiant efforts by some countries to reform them, they continue to persist. This book helps explain this conundrum, by exploring the politics of fossil fuel subsidies and their reform. Bringing together scholars and practitioners, the book offers new case studies both from countries that have undertaken subsidy reform, and those that have yet to do so. It explores the roles of various intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions in promoting fossil fuel subsidy reform at the international level, as well as conceptual aspects of fossil fuel subsidies. This is essential reading for researchers and practitioners, and students of political science, international relations, law, public policy, and environmental studies. This title is also available as Open Access.

Jakob Skovgaard is a researcher at Lunds Universitet, Sweden, undertaking research on EU and international climate change policy. From 2007 to 2010 he worked in the international climate change team of the Danish Finance Ministry, his responsibilities covering inter alia international fossil fuel subsidy reform. His recent publications include articles in Global Environmental Politics, the Journal of Common Market Studies, International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, World Development and Environmental Politics, and a special issue of International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics. Harro van Asselt is Professor of Climate Law and Policy in the Law School of the University of Eastern Finland (UEF), and a Senior Research Fellow with the Stockholm Environment Institute. He is Editor of the Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law. He was previously employed at the University of Oxford and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He has published widely, including in Nature Climate Change, Global Policy, Global Governance, Regulation & Governance, Climatic Change, Global Environmental Politics, Environmental Politics, and Climate Policy. He is the author of The Fragmentation of Global Climate Governance (2014).

'Fossil fuel subsidies are enormous, damaging, and fiendishly hard to reform. This is an essential, comprehensive guide to understanding the issue - and identifying the narrow pathways that may lead to reform. Anyone concerned with the political economy of climate change will benefit from Skovgaard and van Asselt's important book.' Michael L. Ross, University of California, Los Angeles 'Fossil fuel subsidies are expensive and harmful to the environment, yet governments around the world continue to dole them out. This volume offers a comprehensive review of the problem, the politics surrounding it, and experiences with reform efforts in different countries. Skovgaard and van Asselt have compiled an excellent collection on one of the great public policy problems of our time.' Johannes Urpelainen, The Johns Hopkins University 'Over the past century, the politics, institutions and infrastructure of industrial economies have co-evolved with fossil fuels. Yet, addressing climate change is impossible if countries do not wean themselves off fossil fuels, and fast. In this comprehensive new book, Skovgaard and van Asselt, along with a diverse set of contributors, unpack the entrenched politics of fossil fuel subsidies that lie at the heart of this dilemma. Built both around detailed country cases and the dynamics of international institutional politics, they develop a framework to understand the emergence of fossil fuel subsidies as a key agenda in global and national climate politics, but also for its uncertain progress. In both its wide scope, as well as its incisive treatment, this is a field-defining volume of a critical topic.' Navroz K. Dubash, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi 'This is an important book that provides an excellent technical review of the impact of fossil fuel subsidies in the context of the pressing need to address global warming.' William R. Green, The Leading Edge