Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 calls upon the global community to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030. Often people assume that fossil fuel subsidies help the poor by making energy more affordable. In fact, most fossil fuel subsidies are not working well for energy access and poverty goals. The annual fossil fuel subsidy expenditure of USD 425 billion could be better invested by governments towards SDG outcomes. This is already recognized by SDG 12, in which the UN General Assembly’s 193 members included the reform of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies as a means of implementation to achieve more sustainable consumption and production. Subsidy savings could be invested to get on target for many development goals—not least, those on energy access.
This paper, Getting on Target: Accelerating energy access through fossil fuel subsidy reform, reviews the financial implications of fossil fuel subsidies and takes a closer look at how reforming fossil fuel consumption subsidies could interact with energy access goals.
Key findings of this paper are:
Northeast Asia Carbon Markets and Trade Connections published by Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) in collaboration with ICTSD focuses on carbon pricing and the linking of carbon pricing systems as a potential catalyst for increased trade relationships, and explores how the benefits from linking can be heavily impacted by trade relationships and competitiveness concerns within the economies of China, Japan, and Korea.
The report introduces the different approaches to carbon pricing and linking currently being used by the three countries, explains the benefits and challenges of linking different carbon pricing systems, and proposes ways to deepen integration of carbon pricing and trade policies to promote regional carbon market linkage as well as increase trade between all three countries.
