Geneva—11-13 February—Last week the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the IISD Energy programme helped launch a new gender and energy initiative organised by ENERGIA and funded by UKDFID in Geneva at the IISD offices with 30 consortium participants.  The IISD programme will focus on energy empowerment, energy sector reform and impacts for gender.

A new report from the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Global Subsidies Initiative of IISD finds that the removal of fossil-fuel subsidies to consumers (US$ 543 billion in 2014) and to society could reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by between 6-13% by 2050.

Despite slow but solid progress at the climate change negotiations in Lima, the Conference of Parties this year nonetheless saw promising discussions around national efforts to tackle climate change on-the-ground. This includes increasing calls in the last month to realize opportunities stemming from the removal of US$ 550 billion of subsidies to fossil fuels.

This report, produced by IISD-GSI provides input to the Nordic Council of Ministers by identifying options and opportunities for increased Nordic cooperation on the phasing out of fossil-fuel subsidies in developing countries. The research explores existing Nordic cooperation efforts in the fields of energy, climate change and extractives, outlines Nordic development trends and priorities, proposes partner countries, identifies potential areas of cooperation, and presents four recommendations for future action. Savings enable governments to manage deficits—they can be redirected at building sustainable energy networks or targeted at social spending.

This report from the Global Subsidies Initiative of IISD was launched in conjunction with the Asia Europe Foundation, at a conference exploring the financing of future Sustainable Development Goals (September 29–30, 2014).

A new report from the IISD Global Subsidies Initiative was launched in conjunction with the Asia Europe Foundation, at a conference exploring the financing of future Sustainable Development Goals (29-30 September 2014).

The most recent draft of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an outcome from Rio+20 and The Future We Want, now includes international cooperation and potentially financial support towards cleaner fossil-fuel technologies; however, the draft goals no longer recognise the need to phase-out inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies, which stood at $554 billion in 2012 (IEA, 2013). That is four times the level of aid from the OECD DAC in 2013 ($134 billion). This is a step backwards.