London—1-2 September—Civil society organizations from across the world gathered in London from September 1-2 to discuss $544 billion government spending on consumer fossil-fuel subsidies, and the at least $100 billion on producer fossil-fuel subsidies. Participants discussed the size of subsidies, their reform and the impacts of fossil-fuel subsides on sustainable development. The audience included around 65 participants from 25 countries, with participation via video conference from Australia and Egypt. The programme of activities included speakers focused on both consumer and producer subsidies, from Europe to emerging economics, as well as break out groups for people to share information and plan together.

The participants concluded that there is a need for a network of civil society organisations to share information around fossil-fuel subsidy reform, and to support work at the national level, both through raising awareness of existing subsidies and for ensuring that the quality and benefits of fossil-fuel subsidy reform reach across the population. Such a network was thought to be valuable by organisations working on subsidies at both the producer and consumer ends of the spectrum.

Participants also discussed how they could better communicate research with national audiences, both around the process of reform and with regard to transparency regarding the figures and issues at stake. There was agreement that the quality of reform processes matters to civil society organisations, given that the removal of fossil-fuel subsidies can be a challenging process. 

The IISD Global Subsidies Initiative, which organized the conference, outlines a three pillared approach to improving the process of fossil-fuel subsidy reform in ‘A Guidebook to Fossil-fuel Subsidy Reform’: getting prices right, building support for reform, and managing the impacts of reform.

The group discussed opportunities and barriers for removing fossil-fuel subsidies in the national context (speakers came from many different countries including Mexico, Indonesia, India, USA, Russia, Australia, Nigeria, Egypt and Vietnam). The participants also spent time discussing international arenas where the issue of reform has been raised and where there are further opportunities for change.  The variety of organisations, approaches and regions from which participants were drawn made for broad plenary discussions. These were developed further within specific break-out groups focused on particular regions and topics. Participants noted that they benefited from the diversity of people and organisations represented at the conference.

This is some of the feedback from participants:

‘Thanks a lot for the dialogue, it’s good to know I am not alone in this – I like the impact we could have from a very professional network but without the resources it’s not going to work – we need to build a network – based on strong international leadership’

‘Thank you so much for inviting me to, and making me feel so welcome at the subsidies conference. It was restorative for me to spend time with other people who see similar opportunities and problems and discuss different strategies and tactics for tackling them.’

‘Thank you to the organisers of the network, there are a lot of people together to share knowledge – we are facing a lot of challenges and we will share the learning and contacts with colleagues in Vietnam’

‘We need to work together across different think tanks and organisations, and put this together importantly at the national level’

The full website dedicated to the dialogue is here www.iisd.org/gsi/csos.