Consumer Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Over 40 per cent of households in India have no access to modern lighting fuels. This study was undertaken to assess and evaluate the pilot project in Kotkasim with a focus on answering the following issues: how the pilot project performed against its stated policy objectives; how the pilot project impacted kerosene-consuming households, including their ability to access the subsidy and effects on household expenditure; and the policy implications for the reform of the kerosene subsidy system more generally.

This paper analyzes the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in Mysore, India.

Fuel subsidies are a significant fiscal burden in India, costing on average 1.4 per cent of GDP since fiscal year 2008. This paper provides a concise overview of subsidies for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which is widely used as a cooking fuel, particularly in urban areas. The paper also describes recent reforms to LPG subsidies and the impacts of those reforms on consumption, subsidy expenditure and distribution and targeting.

Will President Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan put the United States on a pathway to sustainable development? And will this re-legitimize the United States as a global leader against climate change?

Energy subsidies receive a large share of government expenditure in Bangladesh.

With many governments around the world announcing the provision of generous subsidies to cope with rising commodity prices, the relationship between fossil-fuel subsidies and oil price volatility has once again become a major concern on the international agenda. To help explain the connections between these two issues, Subsidy Watch spoke with the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Senior Energy Analyst Amos Bromhead. 

Energy subsidies are a long-debated issue as regards their efficacy, efficiency and relationship with the problem of climate change. These questions have been recently included on the agenda of the G-20, after the Leaders’ Summit held in Pittsburgh in September 2009. Paragraphs 29 and 31 of the Leaders’ Statement set forth a course of action for member countries. In those paragraphs, fossil-fuel subsidies are questioned on the grounds that they can be inefficient and encourage wasteful consumption, and it is therefore proposed to phase them out over the medium-term, while recognizing the importance of providing those in need with essential energy services.

This October, the International Budget Partnership (IBP), part of the US non-profit organisation the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, published preliminary findings from the Ask Your Government! initiative, an ambitious research project to investigate what happens when citizens around the world ask their governments for specific budgetary information relating to key international development commitments – including the enquiry, “What was the total amount actually incurred during the past three fiscal years on subsidies for oil, gas and coal production and consumption?”