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 new open access book on the “Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Their Reform”, edited by Jakob Skovgaard and Harro van Asselt, helps explain this conundrum. 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.
The book brings together scholars and practitioners, including several the Earth System Governance Project Fellows and Lead Faculty – Steven Bernstein, Matt Hoffmann, Pete Newell, Michelle Scobie, Jakob Skovgaard, Harro van Asselt and Thijs van de Graaf.
The contributions to the book are based on the Earth System Governance Project-affiliated workshop “The Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Their Reform”. Furthermore, several of the contributions to the book will be presented and discussed at panel “The Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Their Reform: Overcoming Carbon Entanglement?” at the 2018 Utrecht Conference on Earth System Governance.
The book is essential reading for researchers and practitioners, and students of political science, international relations, law, public policy, and environmental studies.
More information about the book can be found here.
