News & Events

DELHI – 18 January 2013 – The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CPPA), under the leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, announced yesterday that it would increase India’s diesel prices, and continue to do so through a series of phased hikes, until the existing INR 9.60 (US$ 0.18) per litre subsidy is eliminated.

GERMANY – 8-9 November 2012 – In response to growing demand for collaboration and exchange of knowledge on best practices for fuel price regulation, the German development agency GIZ and the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) organized a dedicated workshop “Smart Fuel Price Regulation”, held at GIZ headquarters in Eschborn, with financial support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

BRUSSELS – 17 October 2012 – The European Commission released today a legislative proposal that would reduce support to conventional biofuels while creating additional incentives for advanced biofuels.

DELHI - 14 September 2012 – The Government of India today announced a 14% increase in the diesel price and new quotas for subsidized LPG cylinders in a bid to reduce its mounting fuel subsidy budget. The reforms are intended to shore up India’s weakening fiscal position.

PARIS – 12 September 2012 – The French cabinet has gathered to reconsider its policy that mandates and otherwise subsidizes the use of traditional crop-based biofuels. The new Socialist government's action plan for agriculture proposes that the use of crop-based biofuels should be capped at 7 per cent, the current level.

UK newspaper The Guardian has published an article on fossil-fuel subsidies in its ‘data blog’. The piece accurately reports a summary of the latest data of fossil-fuel subsidies around the world – their size, inefficiency and incidence.

In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Bill McKibben, Middlebury College professor and founder of the global climate campaign 350.org, highlights the irrationality of U.S. subsidies to fossil-fuel producers by comparison with a type of support that most people are more familiar with - low-interest college loans and scholarships.

The Norwegian government provided 25.5 billion Norwegian kroner (US$4 billion) in subsidies for upstream oil and gas activities in 2009, according to a new report. The report, published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Subsidies Initiative, and authored by Econ Pöyry, provides the first detailed accounting of oil and gas subsidies in Norway.

Reuters reports that China's National Development & Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic policy planner, has submitted plans to the State Council to revamp the fuel price setting system to better reflect market costs.

Nigeria appears poised to end fuel subsidies, an unpopular move in the oil-rich nation where citizens have come to expect cheap fuel as one of their few government benefits, reports Bloomberg. The government submitted a three-year plan to lawmakers proposing to save US$ 8 billion by phasing out subsidies starting from the 2012 fiscal year. The plan says part of that amount can help the poor.