Common Minimum Standards for the National Inventories of Fossil Fuel Subsidies

At the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Dubai, a group of countries, including Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain launched the Coalition on Phasing Out Fossil Fuel Incentives Including Subsidies (COFFIS); since then, more countries have joined the coalition.

COFFIS members committed to publishing an inventory of their fossil fuel subsidies. They also agreed to jointly work toward developing a comprehensive methodological framework for identifying and measuring fossil fuel subsidies. As the first step, COFFIS members agree to an initial set of common minimum standards for developing their national subsidy inventories, as follows:

1. Coexistence of complementary definitions of subsidies and incentives
2. The definition of fossil fuels
3. The definition of subsidy beneficiaries and sectors to be included in the inventory
4. An assessment of subsidies’ climate and socio-economic impacts
5. The need for annual updates of their fossil fuel subsidy inventories