IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/wirecc/v10y2019i4ne581.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The politics of fossil fuel subsidies and their reform: Implications for climate change mitigation

Author

Listed:
  • Jakob Skovgaard
  • Harro van Asselt

Abstract

The production and consumption of fossil fuels need to decrease significantly to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement's ambitious climate change goals. However, fossil fuels continue to receive significant amounts of government support. Although reforming fossil fuel subsidies can yield climate change mitigation benefits, the specific international and domestic political context and political economy of fossil fuel subsidies means that such reform is not straightforward and may not be aligned with traditional climate politics. Our objective in this review article is to examine the implications of the politics of fossil fuel subsidies and their reform for climate change mitigation. The first step of examining these implications is to review existing studies on the size and impacts of global fossil fuel subsidies. Subsequently, we discuss the international politics of fossil fuel subsidies, including the emerging norm of fossil fuel subsidy reform, and the respective roles played by the international climate regime and several international economic institutions. Finally, we examine why fossil fuel subsidies are introduced and maintained at the domestic level, how fossil fuel subsidy reform has functioned in practice, and whether and how such reform could be conceived as an instrument for climate policy. This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Policies, Instruments, Lifestyles, Behavior Policy and Governance > Private Governance of Climate Change

Suggested Citation

  • Jakob Skovgaard & Harro van Asselt, 2019. "The politics of fossil fuel subsidies and their reform: Implications for climate change mitigation," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(4), July.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:wirecc:v:10:y:2019:i:4:n:e581
    DOI: 10.1002/wcc.581
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.581
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/wcc.581?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Harro Asselt, 2023. "The SDGs and fossil fuel subsidy reform," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 191-197, June.
    2. Christian Elliott & Steven Bernstein & Matthew Hoffmann, 2022. "Credibility dilemmas under the Paris agreement: explaining fossil fuel subsidy reform references in INDCs," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 735-759, December.
    3. Boudekhdekh, Karim, 2022. "A comparative analysis of energy subsidy in the MENA region," MPRA Paper 115275, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Jacob Dalder & Gbemi Oluleye & Carla Cannone & Rudolf Yeganyan & Naomi Tan & Mark Howells, 2024. "Modelling Policy Pathways to Maximise Renewable Energy Growth and Investment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Using OSeMOSYS (Open Source Energy Modelling System)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-27, January.
    5. Xinyue Gao & Chang’an Wang & Wengang Bai & Yujie Hou & Defu Che, 2022. "Aluminum-Based Fuels as Energy Carriers for Controllable Power and Hydrogen Generation—A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-22, December.
    6. Daniele Malerba, 2022. "The Effects of Social Protection and Social Cohesion on the Acceptability of Climate Change Mitigation Policies: What Do We (Not) Know in the Context of Low- and Middle-Income Countries?," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(3), pages 1358-1382, June.
    7. Nils Droste & Benjamin Chatterton & Jakob Skovgaard, 2024. "A political economy theory of fossil fuel subsidy reforms in OECD countries," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:wirecc:v:10:y:2019:i:4:n:e581. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1757-7799 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.