Fit for Purpose?: Toward trade rules that support fossil fuel subsidy reform and the clean energy transition - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Fit for Purpose?: Toward trade rules that support fossil fuel subsidy reform and the clean energy transition write by van Asselt, Harro. This book was released on 2020-11-18. Fit for Purpose?: Toward trade rules that support fossil fuel subsidy reform and the clean energy transition available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Available online: https://pub.norden.org/temanord2020-539/ Estimated at USD 478 billion in 2019, fossil fuel subsidies strain the public purse, contribute to climate change, slow the uptake of renewable energy, and lead to local air pollution and associated impacts on public health. Their reform could thus lead to a wide range of socioeconomic and environmental benefits. Despite its binding rules to regulate subsidies, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has so far failed to play any significant role in constraining government support to fossil fuels. Against this backdrop, this report explores whether WTO rules and practices are fit for purpose in addressing fossil fuels subsidies and supporting the clean energy transition, and how they could be reformed to more effectively contribute to these key objectives. It also offers practical recommendations for WTO members and other stakeholders interested in moving this agenda forward.
Increasing the Momentum of Fossil-Fuel Subsidy Reform
Increasing the Momentum of Fossil-Fuel Subsidy Reform - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Increasing the Momentum of Fossil-Fuel Subsidy Reform write by Kerryn Lang. This book was released on 2010. Increasing the Momentum of Fossil-Fuel Subsidy Reform available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. As fossil-fuel subsidy reform moves higher up countries' energy and climate change agendas - the G-20 and APEC have recently taken commitments to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies, countries such as Indonesia, India and Iran are attempting to reduce their subsidy burden, and organizations like the OECD, IEA, World Bank and IMF are refocusing on the topic - there remains the question: what role can international fora such as the WTO, UNFCCC, and international collaboration more generally, play? International collaboration and agreement can provide essential support to national efforts to reform fossil-fuel subsidies. In addition to supplying political legitimacy and peer pressure, it can also offer research and technical assistance, sharing of information and best practice, establishment of rules, financial support and promoting increased accountability. The WTO (World Trade Organisation), with its Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, would seem to be the obvious first choice. However much work needs to be done prior to introducing new negotiations to the WTO - gathering information, building consensus, and in the case of energy subsidies, obtaining a mandate to negotiate disciplines that reach beyond the trade impacts. Immediate action could see improvements to WTO members' reporting on subsidies, however with the Doha Round seemingly at a stand-still, the outlook for negotiations on fossil-fuel subsidy disciplines can only viably be a longer-term goal. The good news is there are other opportunities that can and should be taken advantage of in the meantime. Fossil-fuel subsidy reform is one national action that could have significant and multi-faceted impacts for addressing global climate change - driving down emissions and opening investment pathways for renewable energies. The UNFCCC may be struggling to define its post-Kyoto architecture but there is nothing stopping it from recommending specific non-binding measures that developed countries should take, with clear attractions compared to making a whole new agreement. Discussions around developing countries all suggest that their commitments are likely to based around their policies. Whether these are defined as nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) or otherwise, subsidy reform seems a perfect fit and could be supported technically or financially by the developed world. The UNFCCC might be moving slowly towards a full agreement but we could envisage quick progress on more specific, voluntary actions, potentially even in the build-up to Cancun this December. The G-20 and APEC are already leading the way, having taken commitments to phase out and rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption. The G-20 lacks a secretariat for supporting ongoing research and technical assistance, or monitoring progress on the phase out of members' subsidies, however APEC may be able to fill some of these functions for its members. Country champions are picking up the torch with a newly-formed Friends of Fossil-Fuel Subsidy Reform group, led by New Zealand which includes Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, with membership from developing countries still to be confirmed. As momentum for national fossil-fuel subsidy reform picks up, countries will look increasingly to the international community for support. This paper takes a detailed look at the opportunities, strengths and weaknesses of progressing fossil-fuel subsidy reform within the WTO, UNFCCC and under the G-20's political leadership, and concludes that a collaborative approach between a range of organisations is needed, with country champions driving the process. The paper outlines a roadmap over the next 12 months, 1-3 years and the longer term for increasing international cooperation, and preparing the path to a multilateral agreement on fossil-fuel subsidy reform.
Explaining Energy Disputes at the World Trade Organization
Explaining Energy Disputes at the World Trade Organization - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Explaining Energy Disputes at the World Trade Organization write by Timothy Meyer. This book was released on 2016. Explaining Energy Disputes at the World Trade Organization available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The WTO and the broader international trade regime have seen an explosion of challenges to government support for renewable energy in the last seven years, while no country has brought a formal dispute challenging fossil fuel subsidies in the GATT/WTO's history. This pattern is puzzling because global fossil fuel subsidies dwarf global renewable energy subsidies. Moreover, it suggests that WTO rules may slow the transition to clean energy. Renewable energy technology must compete with highly subsidized fossil fuels, while trade disputes effectively restrict subsidization only for the former. Existing explanations for the absence of trade challenges to fossil fuels support policies have focused primarily on the lack of a mandate within the WTO. Major fossil fuel exporters have not historically been GATT/WTO members; WTO rules allegedly do not apply to energy or are inadequate to deal with the specifics of energy trade; or even if they do, nations have developed separate institutions, such as the IEA or the Energy Charter Treaty, to govern energy. This article argues that, although these explanations have some explanatory power, they cannot fully or satisfactorily account for the pattern of WTO energy disputes in light of the recent focus on some forms of energy in the WTO but not others. Instead, I hypothesize that the economic diversification of energy-producing countries plays a major role in driving challenges to renewable energy support policies, but not fossil fuel support policies. It does so in two ways. First, states challenging energy support policies expect to have greater success in changing the respondent's behavior when the respondent has diversified exports. Renewable energy technologies tend to be produced in countries with diversified economies, while fossil fuel reserves are located overwhelmingly in countries with little diversification in their exports. Second, under what I term the loss aversion hypothesis, states may be more likely to challenge new trade restrictions, rather than similar but long-standing trade restrictions. The loss-aversion hypothesis suggests that trade challenges will arise more in sectors of the economy in which innovation leads to competition, as opposed to in mature sectors of the economy. Economic diversification, in turn, is a good predictor of innovation. As applied to energy, economic diversification contributes to innovation and competition in the renewables sector - and hence triggers demand for new trade restrictions - but not the fossil fuel sector, even though trade restrictions have a long history in that sector as well.
Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform
Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform write by Vernon JC Rive. This book was released on 2019. Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This much-needed book provides an empirically-grounded, and theoretically informed account of international law sources, mechanisms, initiatives and institutions which address and affect the practice of subsidising fossil fuel consumption and production. Drawing on recent scholarship on emerging international governance mechanisms, ‘informal’ international law-making and regime interaction, it offers suggestions, and critiques suggestions of others, for how the international law framework could be employed more effectively and appropriately to respond to environmentally and fiscally harmful fossil fuel subsidies.
The Trade and Environment Debate on the Regulation of Energy Subsidies in the WTO
The Trade and Environment Debate on the Regulation of Energy Subsidies in the WTO - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Trade and Environment Debate on the Regulation of Energy Subsidies in the WTO write by Henok Asmelash. This book was released on 2017. The Trade and Environment Debate on the Regulation of Energy Subsidies in the WTO available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The multilateral rules on subsidies have come under intense scrutiny in the wake of rising trade disputes over renewable energy subsidies. The sudden surge in the number of trade disputes and countervailing duty actions against renewable energy support programs has raised concerns that the multilateral subsidy rules may stand in the way of global efforts to promote the development and deployment of renewable energy sources. This paper shares these concerns, but argues that they are only one side of the environmental concerns that arise from the regulation of energy subsidies in the multilateral trading system. Energy subsidies play a dual role from a sustainable energy transition perspective. While renewable energy subsidies tend to help accelerate the transition, fossil fuel subsidies do exactly the opposite. If the multilateral subsidy rules are to help accelerate but not hinder the transition, then they should not only allow governments to subsidize renewables but also discourage them from subsidizing fossil fuels. This paper attempts to answer why the regulation of fossil fuel subsidies in the multilateral trading system received scant scholarly attention in the wide-ranging debate on trade and the environment.
